HOTD - North America
by Aaron Ledgers
Summary: Luna Collins is an antisocial nerd with albinism AND an inferiority complex, so her biggest desire is simply to keep everyone away from her. She refuses to care about anyone because nobody she loves cares about her: in short, nobody can hurt you if you don't let people in. However, everything changes on a field trip to Boston: chaos breaks out, and dead people start walking. Uh-oh.
1. Prologue: Life was but a Dream

**HIGH SCHOOL OF THE DEAD: NORTH AMERICA  
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_"Civilization slipped into Chaos and Destruction on an unsurprising track of blood, but it happened with a speed that couldn't have been foreseen by even the most pessimistic futurist. It happened so quickly and so unexpectedly that I almost lost my own life: it was almost as if the world had been waiting to go. _

_On October 1st, 2014, God was in heaven, the stock market stood at 10,140, and most of the planes were on time—except for those landing and taking off in Chicago, but that was to be expected. Then, when the world was at its zenith of prosperity, an incredible pulse of energy destroyed a third of North America by echoing through our advanced technology. Two weeks after that energy hit us, the skies belonged to the birds again and the stock market was nothing but a memory. _

_By Halloween, every major city from New York to Moscow stank to the empty heavens, and Civilization was nothing but a dream. _

_As of right now… the world we once called home has been plunged into a never-ending nightmare."_

**—Luna 'Nightingale' Collins—**

* * *

><p><span><strong>Prologue: Life was but a Dream<strong>

The event that came to be known in North America as 'The Pulse' began the day before my fifteenth birthday: 3:02 PM on the afternoon of October first.

The term was a misnomer, of course—but within ten hours of the event, most of the scientists capable of pointing this out were either dead or undead. The name hardly mattered to me, really; what mattered was the effect. This pandemic began in the United States... but it quickly spread all over the world. I'm guessing that it'll probably seem a little strange and confusing to you if I start out the wrong way, so—before I tell my story—I'm going to explain things about myself.

Truthfully, I simply want someone to know that I existed just in case something happens to me.

I mean, so many people have died already that I figure its only a matter of time: we've already hit the point where chaos is dominant.

I don't really know where to start, so I guess I'll go with my name, where and when I was born, and my family. My name is Luna Collins… yeah, weird name, right? I kind of like my first name because it's kind of unique, but other people tell me I'm like an uglier version of Luna Lovegood from that movie, Harry Potter. Meh, I only got my name because I'm an albino, though: my father wanted to name me after something white and pretty, so it was either that or Snowbelle. Out of the two, I'm glad I got stuck with Luna, haha!

Anyway, getting back to my monologue... I was born in Anaktuvuk Village, Alaska, on October 2nd, 1999, I enjoy reading a good book any day of the week, and I love writing poetry and short stories. My hobbies include painting, composing music, playing the piano, Googling scientific stuff, and singing whenever I'm in the shower. I guess I sound like your average nerdy-girl-next-door, huh?

You'd be right: I'm a typical nerd, albeit an extremely quiet and antisocial one... and yes, I do mean antisocial, not just 'shy.'

You see, I'm only four feet and seven inches tall, and because I weigh virtually nothing compared to other girls, I'm a helluva lot weaker. I stopped trying to get along with people on my first day of middle school, since a group of boys literally lifted me up and threw me around like a football. Worst day of my life, end of story.

Well, end of OLD story: these days, every single moment of my life is a waking nightmare, so... yeah.

To finish up this little monologue, I want to tell you about the last and most important part of my life.

Well, it may not SEEM important, but to me... it is.

I don't really remember my Biological father all that much because he left my family when I was only three years old; but I had a mother and two siblings. Yes, I'm the baby in my family: I had a beloved older brother named Jonathan and a ditzy older sister named Amelia—both who loved me just as much as I loved them.

Well… that's kind of a tall tale, since I'm apparently their half sister due to the fact that my father 'supposedly' cheated on my mom.

I was born with albinism after all... so, according to her, the answer to my different appearance was that my dad cheated on her.

I'd have suggested doing a blood test or something to prove his innocence, but you see... nobody knows where he is.

Johnny and Amy loved me just as much as any older sibling should until my mother told them I was the spawn of an unknown whore that our dad left us for. After that, they hated me with a passion. You see, my mother, my sister, and my brother all have fiery red hair, dreamy hazel eyes, and big-boned frames that give people a distinct feeling of intimidation. I'm the only one in my entire family who has white hair, garishly bright pink eyes, and a small body. In the end, I kind of came to hate myself, but that's enough about me.

I'm not sure how much time I have left to write.

Anyway, now that I've explained myself, are you ready to listen to the story of how a nerdy, unloved teenage girl managed to survive when Armageddon began right in front of her eyes? Because that girl's story would be mine, and it's still fresh in my memory. In truth, it happened on the day that my history class was taking a field trip to the Boston Harbor. We were supposed to be going to a high-class museum to learn firsthand information about the Boston Tea Party, but it had taken forever to get from Michigan to Massachusetts due to a few traffic jams.

So, because of that, we were all going to be staying the night at a place called the Atlantic Avenue Inn. When we stopped, were given the instructions to go get some lunch and to meet the teachers at the Inn an hour from then, so I did as I was asked and got off the bus. Hefting my backpack over my shoulder, I began walking along Boylston street with five of my classmates, who were all heading toward the same ice cream vendor I'd seen on the way through the city.

The five of them were laughing and joking excitedly in front of me as I walked, but I kept my distance from them. I had no desire to take part in their merriment since, as mentioned before, I don't like other people very much. Plus, I usually end up saying the wrong thing anyway: I only embarrass myself.

Still, when I heard the tinkle of the ice cream truck, I glanced up and peered around my classmates to see where it was.

The vendor was parked across from the Four Seasons Hotel, next to the Boston Common—which ran along Boylston street for two or three blocks on my side of the road. The words Mister Softee were printed in rainbow colors over a pair of dancing ice cream cones. I watched impassively as my classmates clustered around the window, letting their backpacks drop to their feet as they ordered and began waiting to receive their hotdogs, nachos, and ice cream.

A woman in a jogging suit walked over and stood behind them with a poodle on a leash, and a couple of pretty local girls wearing bellbottom jeans were talking with each other as they fell in behind the woman. I followed suit and fell in behind the two girls, keeping as much distance between myself and my classmates as I possibly could. As you might have guessed, I'm not a very social person.

The guy in the truck served my fellow students at the window, and Jared Alistair—one of the snobby boys from my homeroom—reached into his pocket to pay for the entire group. While he fumbled a rat's nest of dollar bills from the pocket of his khaki's, the woman with the poodle dipped into her purse and came out with her cell phone, flipping it open. Behind us in the park, a dog barked and someone shouted hysterically: it didn't sound like a happy shout, but it wasn't any of my business so I ignored it.

Mind going off into la-la-land, I began to look for a place to relax while I ate my lunch and eventually saw the park entrance nearby: it looked like a good, cozy place for a girl to read in peace and quiet. Feeling more than a little satisfied, I turned back around and saw that my classmates were walking toward the inn; the woman in the jogger suit was now ordering a sundae. After a moment of waiting, I glanced down and saw that one of the two girls standing behind her had a peppermint colored I-phone clipped to her hip.

I didn't have a cell phone of my own, but that was mostly because I didn't have anyone I wanted to call.

I rolled my eyes when the peppermint phone played the opening notes to a rap song by the Insane Clown Posse.

The girl to whom the phone belonged snatched it off her hip and flicked it open with a snap.

"Bev?" the blonde girl standing in front of me whispered; she listened for a moment before smiling excitedly at her brown-haired companion and whispering, "Jessie, it's Beverly! She just asked about the science exam, so I don't think she knows about her birthday party yet! Keep quiet and don't blab until tomorrow, got it?! We still have a chance at making her squeal!"

"Good job getting that dirt on Andrew, Katie!" the brunette giggled, letting out an excited squeal before they both bent forward with eager expressions. "I thought for sure that he would blow everything, but we stopped him!"

I watched as their nearly identical pixie haircuts ruffled in the afternoon breeze, finding the scene oddly adorable.

"Madeline, sweetie?" the woman in the jogger suit inquired, holding her cell phone against her ear. "Are you there?"

Her poodle was now sitting contemplatively at the end of its leash, looking at the traffic on Boylston Street.

Across the ways, at the Four Seasons, a doorman in a brown uniform was waving at someone. I glanced at the road as a double-floored red bus crammed with tourists sailed by as the driver bawled something into his loudspeaker about historical facts. I turned to look back at the tall pixie-like girls in front of me, watching as they looked at each other and giggled at whatever they were hearing from their friend, Bev. However, I cocked my head to the side with a confused frown when a sizzling red crackle unexpectedly engulfed both phones. I stared intently at both forms of communications, trying to figure out what I was seeing, but the sudden red glows disappeared before I could even tell whether or not they had been there in the first place.

_Odd… _I muttered silently, eyeing the phones with a shiver. _What the heck was up with that weird light?_

"Beverly, what's wrong?" the blonde girl suddenly asked, and her friend leaned farther forward to hear better. "Why are you crying all of a sudden? Bev…?"

"Huh? Madeline, can you hear me? Baby, what's wrong? Are you crying?" the woman in the jogging suit asked almost simultaneously, raising the hand holding the leash to plug her free ear. "Madeline, you're breaking up! I just wanted to tell you that I'll be home by the time you get back from school. I'm out on my afternoon run to see about that new… that new… Lord… my… h-head…"

I stared in blank confusion at the shrieking cell phone users for a long moment, wondering what the hell was wrong with them.

Were they getting chronic migraines from the radio signals emanating from the speakers?

My eyes narrowed in a half-lidded fashion.

Yeah, right.

After a moment, I gave up trying to figure them out and shook my head with a baffled sigh. Then I turned my attention to the guy in the Mister Softee truck, who bent down and held out a sundae cup. From what I could see, his bearded face was impassive and his expression clearly said that he'd seen it all before. However, I jumped when someone in the park let out a raw-throated scream and immediately glanced over my shoulder: as I was doing so, the woman in front of me shrieked something unintelligible to Madeline and flipped her cell phone closed. I turned around and watched uneasily as she dropped it back into her purse and just stood there, looking almost as if she'd forgotten what she was doing.

"Um, Miss?" I hesitantly asked, swallowing in concern when she started swaying back and forth before twitching. "Are you okay?"

When she turned, I jumped when I noticed that her face was slowly becoming pale... and if I wasn't mistaken, something was wrong with her eyes.

Her pupils were unbelievably wide... unmoving, wide, and empty: like two cold, black holes in her iris.

"That'll be four-fifty, Ma'am," the vendor in the ice cream truck said, still patiently holding out the ice cream sundae. "I've got other customers to serve."

The woman in the jogging suit turned her head to face him but did nothing at all, merely stared in the direction of the ice cream man's face as if she'd never seen such a thing before. When yet another cry came from the common—not human this time, more like something between a surprised yelp and a hurt yowl—I flinched and whirled around a third time.

However, this time, my eyes popped open wide and I dropped all of my things in shock.

"W-what the hell?!" I whispered, slowly covering my mouth. "Oh, my God!"

A golden retriever was struggling to get away from an extremely pale man wearing a business suit: the man was currently on his knees beside the animal and strangling it in a chokehold... but his mouth was bloody, and he was snarling like a psycho as he chewed on its ear. I twitched and clutched the front of my knee-length school skirt in horror when the dog yowled again and tried to spurt away. The man in the business suit held it firm, clamping his teeth down even harder on the creature's ear. Even as I continued to watch, the psychopath tore the appendage off of the dog's head and the animal uttered an almost human-sounding screech—causing the ducks that had been floating on a nearby pond to take flight.

"W-what the hell?!" the guy in the Ice cream truck suddenly shout. "AGH! FUCK! MY ARM! YOU CRAZY BITCH! DID YOU JUST BITE ME?! "

I immediately whirled around with a palpitating heart.

The woman in the jogging suit lunged through the window a second time in an effort to grab the Mister Softee vendor. She managed to snag the loose folds at the front of his white apron, but his startled steps backward were enough to break the hold. The sundae tumbled from view as the woman's shoes landed back on the sidewalk: the closed-off, well-bred, out-in-public look on her face had been replaced by a convulsive snarl that had shrunk her eyes to slits and exposed both sets of teeth.

However, her pupils were still unbelievably large, and her face looked almost as though she had no blood running through her: she was so pale that she'd practically turned blue.

I clutched my blazer and squeezed the fistful of clothing in dazed fear, watching numbly as the woman's poodle ran into the street with the leash still trailing behind.

I let out a shriek when a black limo careened down the road at an incredibly high speed and ran the poodle down.

"What the hell is going on?!" I choked out, shuddering violently as a sickening terror wormed its way inside my body. "Did everyone go crazy?!"

Somewhere—it sounded like maybe around the corner—something exploded and I fell to my knees with a startled shriek, covering my head with both hands and cowering down as the earth vibrated. However, I stood up straight again and gasped when—on the other side of the street—a car swerved and bolted across the sidewalk in front of the Four Seasons and barely missed the young doorman: there was a sudden volley of screams that erupted from the hotel's forecourt, a spot I couldn't see at all.

The blonde girl suddenly dropped her phone onto the sidewalk—where it shattered—and seized the woman in the jogging suit around the waist.

I assumed she was trying to restrain the woman from going after the vendor or running into the street after her dog, and there was even a part of my mind that applauded the girl's state of mind. Her friend—the girl with the brunette pixie cut—backed away from the whole ordeal with wide brown eyes, small white hands clasped between her breasts. My legs suddenly came unglued and I moved forward to help the blonde girl—but before I could even begin helping her with the woman, the teenager's pretty little face darted forward with snakelike speed and bit down on her neck.

I leapt backward with a horrified shriek as a jet of blood erupted from the woman's body.

The blonde girl stuck her face in the blood and appeared to bathe in it before she shook the woman back and forth like a doll. Jogger Lady was much taller and probably outweighed the blonde by at least seventy pounds, but the girl shook her body hard enough to make her head flop back and forth—sending more blood flying. I watched with huge eyes, mouth opening and closing in speechless shock as the blonde girl cocked her blood-smeared face up to the bright October sky and groaned in a raspy tone… in what looked to me like triumph.

_She's gone insane!_ I shrieked inside my head, backing away with jerky movements. _Everyone's gone totally insane!_

"What's going on here?!" the brunette suddenly cried, diverting my attention to her face instantly. "K-Katie?!"

However, my eyes widened when the blonde girl whipped her head around; blood was dripping from the short dagger-points of platinum blonde hair overhanging her forehead, and eyes that had suddenly become like white lamps peered out of blood-dappled sockets. Her pupils were extremely large, just like Jogger Lady's.

"Oh, shit," I whispered weakly, voice coming out in a choked tone as I struggled to force the words out of my mouth. "What the hell is wrong with their eyes?!"

"K-Katie?!" the brunette repeated; a panicked expression crossed her face when the blonde dropped the woman in the Jogger's suit. "H-hey, are you okay?!"

I started backing away when the blonde girl swayed and lumbered forward in a drunken manner; then I spotted a fairly large rock and got an idea. When the blonde girl leapt at the brunette and the latter screeched in terror, I snatched the stone off the curb, drew back my fist, and hurled it at the back of her head with all of my strength. The rock hit the teenager just as she was leaping for her erstwhile friend with outstretched hands, smacking against her skull with a squelching thump. I bit my lip when she fell to the sidewalk like a rag doll.

"EEEEK!" Jessica squealed, jumping back with large eyes. "KATIE?!"

"What the hell is going on here?!" the vendor spluttered, looking at me with large eyes. "Little girl, what's happening?!"

"How the fuck am I supposed to know?!" I stammered shrilly, heart hammering with the knowledge of what I'd just done. "That girl just RIPPED HER THROAT OUT!"

"Fuck that shit!" the man laughed maniacally. "Tell me what's going on before I call the cops and have you all arrested!"

"Shut up and _help_ her!" I shouted at him, flinching and covering my head when the unmistakable sound of a car accident came from behind me—followed by hysterical screams. The shrieks were followed by another explosion—this one louder and much more concussive than the last. "What was that?!"

Behind the Mister Softee truck, another car swerved across three lanes of Boylston Street and into the courtyard of the Four Seasons—mowing down a couple of screaming pedestrians and plowing into the back of the previous car, which had finished with its nose crumpled into the revolving doors. The second crash shoved the first car farther into the revolving doors, bending them askew. The acrid scent of shredded metal and blood hit me like a ton of bricks.

"What in the world is going on over there?!" the ice cream vendor demanded, leaning out of his window and trying to get a glimpse of the chaos that had suddenly erupted all over. "Did some sort of big-time accident just happen around here?"

"I don't know what's going on, but there were just a couple of car wrecks!" I cried, kneeling beside the woman in the jogging suit; I immediately hiked up my school skirt in an attempt to keep it out of the blood. "Oh, God! She… she's dying! Help, what do I do?!"

"There's smoke over on Newbury," the vendor observed, still not emerging from his ice cream wagon. "Something blew up over there, and I mean big time. You see any men with machine guns, little girl? Maybe it's a terrorist attack. "

"Help me!" I shrieked, looking up at the man with desperate eyes. "She's dying! Help me! Please, tell me what to do before she bleeds to death!"

"KATIE?!" the brown-haired girl suddenly screeched, reminding me again that she was there. "MOM?! WHERE AM I?!"

I looked up in time to see the brunette smack herself in the forehead with the heel of her hand and turn around rapidly three times. She staggered for a moment, but then ran down the sidewalk and smacked directly into a lamppost. The girl made no attempt to avoid it or even tried to put up her hands as she struck it face-first.

However, after the girl rebounded, staggering, she went at it again.

"What the heck is wrong with you?!" I cried with a trace of hysteria. "Stop it!"

The moment I leapt to my feet and tried to run over, I slipped in the dying woman's blood and almost fell.

I managed to keep on my feet and get going again—only to trip on the blonde girl's body and fall face-first on the ground like a klutz. The brunette stared at me blankly as I tried to get to my feet again: her nose was broken and gushing blood down her face; a vertical contusion was puffing up on her brow, rising like a thunderhead on a summer day; one of her eyes had gone crooked in its socket. When I looked up at her through my snowy bangs, she opened her mouth—exposing what had probably been expensive orthodontic work—and laughed at me.

Then she ran down the sidewalk, screaming her head off.

Somehow, I just knew I'd never be able to forget that horrifying sight, ever.

"Oh, my God..." the guy in the vendor breathed, coughing violently for a few moments. "I'm bleeding! I'm coughing up blood! What the hell?!"

"She's dying! Someone, help! Help!" I shrieked, shaking the woman's arm until she twitched and slowly started moving again. "Huh?! Miss, can you hear me?!"

I froze when the woman groaned: it had come out of her mouth in an almost... inhuman manner,

Then she lifted her face, which made me scrabble away from her with a startled shriek: head twitching, she started crawling towards me.

However, my horrified stupor was interrupted when a motor started up behind me and amplified bells began tinkling out the Sesame Street theme. My eyes instantly widened and I whirled around with a start, but my fear skyrocketed when I saw that the Mister Softee truck was rapidly pulling away from the curb.

As he drove around me, he ran the crawling woman over and her body rolled.

I crawled back to my feet and froze when, from the top floor of the hotel across the street, a window shattered in a bright spray of glass and a man's screaming body hurtled out into the October day. I watched with stunned eyes as he fell to the sidewalk and covered my mouth with a squeal when he more or less exploded. After that I heard more hysterical screams coming from the forecourt: the agonized shrieks of horror and pain that only a disaster could cause.

"Wait!" I finally wailed, darting forward and running after the Mister Softee truck. "Don't leave me! Help!"

That's when I saw a man wearing a bus uniform come running out of the park and roaring wordless sounds at the top of his lungs.

I skidded to a halt as my breath hitched in my throat, eyes widening in shock when I recognized him as our own bus driver, Mr. Davies. I covered my face with a squeak, feeling as though I were living in a horror movie as I watched him run into Boylston Street through my fingers.

Cars and buses swerved around him, barely missing his running form. I watched with bated breath as he ran to the other side—still roaring and waving his hands at the sky and waited until he disappeared into the shadows beneath the canopy of the Four Seasons forecourt before I uncovered my eyes with an exhausted sigh. At first I was relieved he hadn't been killed, but I quickly changed my opinion after a few seconds: he must have been up to some huge trouble because a fresh volley of screams broke out in the forecourt where he'd disappeared.

I didn't even want to know.

I had just started glancing around for somewhere to run when another double-decker bus appeared—this one not loafing, but roaring at top speed and yawning crazily from side to side. Some of the passengers were howling—pleading—for the driver to stop; others simply clung to the metal struts running up the open and closed sides of the ungainly thing as it made its way up Boylston street against the flow of traffic. However, the driver saw the Mister Softee truck and changed course.

"Oh, God…" I whispered, eyes widening to the size of saucers as I clamped both of my hands to my mouth. "No, no, no… this isn't real."

I felt a sense of impending dread as this new horrifying scene began to unfold right in front of my eyes.

"Stop it, please! This isn't funny!" a young woman sitting near the front of the bus cried, clutching her infant daughter with a terrified expression as the lumbering vehicle closed in on the ice cream truck. "God, please stop the bus! Stop the bus!"

I squealed, covering my face with both hands and flinching behind my fingers when the bus broadsided the ice cream truck with a screeching bang, flipping it like a child's toy and sending it skidding across the street. The amplification system continued to tinkle out the Sesame Street theme as it went sliding back toward the common, shooting up friction-generated sparks as it screeched across the pavement.

Two black women—an elderly mother and adult daughter—who had been watching the scene with round eyes dashed to get out of the way with hysterical shrieks, holding hands as they dove to the ground. They had just made it out of the way when the Mister Softee truck bounced onto the sidewalk, went briefly airborne, and hit the wrought-iron fence where they had been standing only seconds before.

"What the fuck?" a deep voice rumbled. "What the hell is going on here?!"

I timidly peeked over my fingers when the ice cream truck came to a rest; the music hiccuped twice before stopping.

Meanwhile, the lunatic driving the bus had lost whatever marginal control he might have had over his vehicle: it looped back across Boylston Street with its fright of screaming passengers clinging to the open sides at the top and hugging the poles in the lower compartments. It mounted the sidewalk about fifty yards down from the point where the Mister Softee truck had tinkled its last and ran into the low brick-retaining wall, directly below the display of a furniture shop called City Lights.

There was a vast crashing sound as the window shattered and the bus's wide rear end rose perhaps five feet into the air. Momentum wanted the massive thing to go end-over-end; mass would not allow it to. It settled back to the sidewalk with the front poking among the scattered sofas and expensive living room chairs—but not before at least three dozen people had gone shooting forward out of the two glass windshields and out of sight. Inside the store, a burglar alarm began to clang, ringing out into the cacophonous air.

"Holy shit!" the voice rumbled a second time. "What the hell is happening?!"

"Huh?" I whispered, finally registering—for the first time—that someone was standing next to me. "EEK! STAY BACK!"

I instantly whirled to look at him with wild amethyst eyes, thigh-length white hair fanning out as I spun away from the person standing next to me. A heavily-muscled boy with thick blonde hair and a red bandana tied across his forehead was staring at the chaos in blatant disbelief. What startled me, however, was the fact that he was wearing a uniform with my academy's insignia on the arm. He went to Dayton Academy just like me! A classmate! The realization nearly made me faint from relief.

"Hey, you go to Dayton Private High!" he exclaimed, glancing at my uniform. "Good to see something familiar! What's going on?"

"I don't have a clue," I peeped almost inaudibly; talking was suddenly very hard, and I found myself almost having to push the words out. "People have gone nuts!"

The weirdest part was the fact that I found myself wanting to hug this boy for comfort, simply because he seemed like the only normal thing in all of this twisted chaos.

As if God himself were trying to prove this, I happened to glance across the street just in time to see people from the Four Seasons and survivors from the double-decker bus running away from a few blue-skinned cannibals. Even as I watched, the urge to hug him grew stronger when the cannibals caught a young woman and swarmed on her, ripping her flesh with their teeth as bloodcurdling screeches burst from her mouth.

"What the hell is happening around here?!" the boy choked, running a hand through his long blonde hair. "Did someone slip acid into my sandwich while I wasn't looking or something? Because either this isn't normal, or I'm tripping the fuck out."

"The guy in the ice cream truck said that this might be a terrorist attack," I whimpered, squeezing my eyes shut and covering my face with a shriek when another screaming body fell from a window and splattered on the ground. "Oh, God! No!"

"I didn't see any men with machine guns, and there were no guys with bombs strapped to their backs," my classmate shakily pointed out, furiously clutching at his blonde hair. I'll admit that I hadn't seen any of that, either, but I did suddenly see the portfolio book that I'd given my brother and sister long time ago lying on the ground: it was sitting on the sidewalk where I'd dropped it in my shock when everything had started happening.

I also saw that the pool of blood—gushing from the jogging-woman's open throat—had almost reached the spot it was lying in.

I covered my mouth and hastily started toward my art book, ignoring my nausea. My school skirt swished around my legs and my dress shoes clacked against the stone as I sped over to where it was lying—facedown—on the ground. My classmate kept pace with me as I walked, obviously deciding to follow me since I was also a normal human being—or, at least, normal to an extent. When a second burglar alarm went off in the hotel—joining its hoarse bray to the clang of the City Lights alarm—both of us jumped almost a foot in the air.

"It's only the hotel," I said in a small voice, glancing worriedly at the building. "Nothing too serious."

"I know, but it's just…" he tried to say, but then he saw the woman in the jogger's suit lying in a lake of her own blood and cried hysterically, "Oh, my God! What happened over here?! It's like Chainsaw Massacre just popped into reality!"

"I know how bad it looks," I whispered, avoiding the sight by averting my eyes. "The blonde girl lying right there was the one who did it. She… s-she did it with her teeth… right in front of me… but then, the woman started moving all over again until she got run over. It was insane."

"You're joking," my classmate spluttered, pulling his red bandana up and revealing huge crystal blue eyes. "That sounds like something from a zombie movie!"

"It looked like something from a zombie movie!" I jerkily replied, feeling shaky with adrenaline as I picked up my book and clutched it to my chest. "Not even kidding!"

With a horrified expression, the blonde boy stared at the crumpled body of the woman who had stopped for a sundae and had lost first her dog, and then her life.

From somewhere up Boylston Street there was another explosion, and both of us cringed. Just after that and coming from behind us, three young men pelted past on the sidewalk, yelling and laughing excitedly. I saw that two of them had Red Sox caps turned around backward and the last had a radio box clutched against his chest. The man holding the new radio stepped in the woman's spreading blood with his right sneaker, leaving a one-foot trail behind him as he and his friends ran toward the east end of the Common and Chinatown beyond.

I dropped to my knees after they'd disappeared and used the hand not clutching my portfolio to pick up the blonde girl's wrist.

I shuddered when I didn't find a pulse: she was dead... her skin was already cold and bone white

And despite the fact that I had no clue what was going on, on the day everything came to an end... I knew if I wasn't careful, I'd end up dead, too.


	2. Chapter 1: The Boston Massacre

**Chapter One: The Boston Massacre**

Once I'd checked the blonde girl's pulse, I stood up again and covered my mouth, trying to figure out what was going on.

In short, the only conclusion I could come up with was that I had killed her by throwing the rock: I had become a murderer somehow.

"Hey, look out!" my classmate suddenly cried, nearly giving me a heart attack. "Look out!"

Sadly, I had absolutely no time to look out... but luckily for me, this call wasn't even close: a vehicle—one of those big family-sized SUVs—had veered off Boylston and gone into the park at least twenty yards from where I was kneeling, taking a snarl of the wrought-iron fence in front of it and coming to rest bumper-deep in the duck pond. The door opened and a young man floundered out, yelling gibberish at the sky—but my jaw dropped in disgusted shock when he fell to his knees in the water, scooped some of it into his mouth with both hands, (I had a passing thought of all the ducks that had happily shat in that pond over the years) and then struggled to his feet before staggering to the far side.

"We need to get some help," I shakily told my classmate, glancing up at him through my hair. "We need to find a paramedic or an ambulance."

"Are you nuts?!" the blonde boy retorted. "What we need to do is get off the street before we get run over!"

As if to prove his point, a taxi collided with a stretch limo not far from the wrecked bus.

The limo had been going the wrong way, but the taxi got the worst of it and the driver flew through his windshield. I flinched and looked away when he landed in the street and instantly held his severed arm, screaming as blood began to spurt out of the decapitated trunk. Okay, obviously my classmate was right: the wisest course of action would have been to get the hell away from Boylston street. What we should have been doing was taking shelter until the situation clarified, and that probably would have entailed finding a television.

"You go on ahead and find some shelter for us!" I suddenly stated, looking up at the blonde boy with reluctant eyes; even though I really didn't know him all that well, I honestly didn't want him to leave me alone. He hadn't turned bone white with large pupils—or better yet, gone for my throat with his teeth bared. "Don't worry, I'll be okay for now."

"What the fuck?!" the boy scoffed, looking at me with incredulous arctic blue eyes. "You must be a lunatic, because there is absolutely no way I'm leaving a tiny little chick like you alone in this nuthouse! We're classmates, so we're sticking together!"

"Just get going and get inside somewhere, okay?" I snapped, then faltered a little. "I'll, uh…"

I trailed off uneasily, not knowing how to finish the sentence.

"You'll what?" the boy demanded impatiently, wincing a little as something else exploded behind him. "Get yourself killed?"

This latest blast had come from directly behind the hotel, and black smoke was already beginning to rise there—staining the bright blue sky dark.

"I'll call a cop!" I exclaimed, suddenly feeling hopeful as I pointed to the woman in the jogging suit, who was now lying dead in a pool of her own blood. "She's got a cell phone! I saw her using it when I was in line, waiting to order lunch at the ice cream vendor. You know, just before all of this… this…"

My eyes went blank with a horrible realization as I replayed exactly what had happened.

The world suddenly became silent except for my breathing as my pale golden eyes wandered from the dead woman to the unconscious girl, and then onto the shards of the unconscious girl's peppermint-colored cell phone. As I stared at the broken plastic shards, I felt a slow, but incredibly icy wave of fear washing over me: the woman in the jogging suit had called her daughter; the blonde girl's friend had called her; she, the blonde, and the brunette had listened to their calls. Then, a sizzling red glow had sparked around both cell phones—and after that, all three of them had gone crazy.

BOOOOOM!

My epiphany was cut off when, from behind us and to the east, the biggest explosion yet slammed against the air like a drum that had been drawn too tight.

It was a terrific blast of sound that sent a painful concussion into my chest.

I leapt to my feet like a cat that had just had it's tail stepped on and exchanged a wild-eyed glance with my classmate before we both looked toward Chinatown and Boston's North End. I couldn't exactly see what had exploded, but a blinding light had lit up the entire horizon and a shockwave of burning wind slammed into the two of us only a second later: the blast was enormous.

"Was that a nuke?!" my classmate cried, blonde hair being swept back by the fiery wind that blew across our faces. "Holy shit!"

"If it was a nuke," I stated inaudibly, pink eyes blank as I stared at the plume of fire rising above the rooftops in the distance, "I think we'd be dead right now."

While we were looking at the aftereffects of an explosion more suitable for an action movie, a Boston PD radio-car and a hook-and-ladder fire truck pulled up in front of the Four Seasons across the street. I glanced over just in time to see a second jumper set sail from the top story of the hotel, followed by a pair from the roof. To me, it looked as though the two from the roof were actually brawling with each other on the way down.

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, no more!" an old woman screamed. "No more of this! No more!"

The first of the suicidal trio hit the rear of the police car, splattering the trunk with hair and gore as she shattered the back window.

The other two hit the hook and ladder as firemen dressed in bright yellow coats scattered like improbable birds. However, there was more terror to come: a young woman from the fifth or sixth floor tumbled backwards out of a window, shattering the glass with a screech of mortal terror and tumbling like a crazy acrobat. Her shrieking form struck a young policeman—a Hispanic youth who couldn't have been more than twenty-two, tops—killing him even as she was killed herself. Not even a second later, another one of those great roaring explosions came from the north, sending the two of us ducking as the sky was lit up again.

Aanother shockwave slammed into us soon after, seeming to steal our breath away: despite the brisk breeze—the blue sky was almost completely blotted out.

I looked up at my classmate with a terror-stricken expression and saw that he was looking down at me from beneath his bandana with frightened blue eyes.

"They're using planes again," my classmate breathed, eyes going wide in shock and horror. "Those Arab people are using planes to bomb all of us, just like they did on the twin towers! What the hell are we gonna do if they crash a plane near us?!"

"But… isn't that Logan Airport over there?" I asked in a voice that sounded blank and detached, even to my own ears. "That's the airport, right?!"

I was finding it hard to talk again, and even harder to think.

A third monstrous explosion came rolling over to us from the city's northeast end only two short seconds after I'd asked.

I flinched when the resulting shockwave slammed into my chest:

"So what?" my classmate demanded, glaring down at me. "Those are probably the planes they're using!"

"Well, if this really is a terrorist attack, why are they blowing the airport up instead of crashing the planes after they're in the air? And why aren't they attacking the Hancock Building or the Historical Museum?" I inquired in a whining voice as I looked up at him with confused eyes. "Why would they attack Logan Airport instead of a place that has a lot of value?!"

"I don't know and I don't really care," the muscular boy sighed in dismay, broad shoulders slumping as he ran a hand through his wild sandy blonde hair. "All I know is that I want to get the hell off of this street with you completely intact, since you're pretty much the only sane person I've seen since we all got off the school bus. So, can we please just get going now?!"

Half a dozen more adults sprinted past us after he spoke.

These six people—four men and two women—were running without stolen goods and they most assuredly weren't laughing. As they ran, I saw one of the young men pulling his cell out and sticking it against his ear. I glanced across the street and saw that a second police unit had pulled up behind the first. So, there was no need to use the dead woman's cell phone after all—which was good, since I'd already decided that I didn't really want to do that. I could walk across the street and talk to them, but I wasn't sure that I dared to cross the street just yet.

Even if I did, would they come over here just to look at one unconscious girl when they had God knew how many casualties over there? Anyway, even as I watched, the firemen began piling back on board their hook-and-ladder unit; it looked like they were heading someplace else. Over to Logan Airport, quite likely, or—

"Oh, shit…" my classmate suddenly hissed, speaking in a low voice as he clutched my arm.

When I looked up, I saw that he was staring toward Boylston road—in the very direction that I'd been coming from when my major object in life had been to get a bite to eat and daydream about the day my brother and sister would love me again.

"What the hell?!" I choked out, clutching at his sleeve as my eyes snapped open wide. "Oh, God!"

Coming toward us was a man who was wearing suit pants and the remains of a shirt and tie.

The pants were gray, but it was impossible to tell what color the shirt and tie had been because both were now shredded and stained with blood.

In his right hand was what looked like a butcher knife that was now stained with blood. The man swung the knife as he closed in on us with his flat-footed strides, cutting short up-and-down arcs in the air. He broke the pattern only once to slash at himself, and a fresh rill of blood ran through a new rip in his tattered shirt. The remains of his tie flapped as he closed the space between us, hectoring like a backwoods preacher speaking in tongues at the moment of some divine revelation.

"Eyelah!" he cried hysterically, blue eyes vacant and pupils large as his blue, bloodstained mouth worked frantically. "Eelah-eyelah-a-babbalah naz! A-babbalah why? A-bunnaloo coy? Kazzalah! Kazzalah-can! Fie! Shy-fie!"

He brought the knife back to his right hip and then beyond it, and my hyper-developed imagination could suddenly see how the sweeping stroke would follow: it was supposed to be a gutting stroke, and he was going to kill my classmate even as he continued his nuthouse march to nowhere through the October afternoon in those flat-footed declamatory strides of his.

"Look out!" the blonde boy shouted at me over his shoulder. "Run!"

I immediately realized that he wasn't looking out; this boy, who was the first normal person I'd seen since all the craziness began, was frozen in place in front of me… and despite the brave actions and the determined expression, I could sense that he was absolutely terrified of the man. Oh, and the lunatic with the knife was going for him, not me—even though I was definitely the easier-looking prey out of the two of us.

"Move, you idiot!" I shrieked, pulling his arm and trying to jerk him away. "He's going after _you!"_

My classmate wouldn't budge, though, even when I knew he could see that his death was sweeping toward him. I didn't think about the consequences of my actions: I simply grabbed my bag, flung myself in front of him, and prayed with all of my heart that I'd be okay. The blade went through the leather of my school bag with a hollow hissing noise. I squeaked when the tip stopped an inch short of my nose. However, my classmate finally came to his senses and stumbled backward, screaming at the top of his lungs.

"Y-y-y-you crazy lunatic! What the hell is w-w-w-wrong with you?!" I screeched at the crazy man, jerking my bag away and yanking the dagger out of his grasp. After that I charged him head-on, shoving his fat form backward and growing angrier with each passing second. "You think you're so fucking tough, huh?! Is picking on helpless teenagers just a game for you?! IS IT?!"

"Blet!" the lunatic hollered, trying to bite my hands when I shoved him again. "Blet kyyam kazzalah a-babbalah!"

"I'll a-babbalah your a-kazzalah, you psychotic fucktard!" I squeaked, planting my left foot behind the madman's backpedaling legs. "LAY DOWN, BITCH!"

After the madman tripped over my dress-shoe, I whirled around and sent a kick straight into the side of his head: he fell flat on his back.

However, the lunatic merely screeched incoherently and got up with an ease that startled me profoundly, but before he could lunge at me, my new friend darted forward and kicked him in the neck with a deadly amount of strength. The blonde boy was shaking and whiter than a sheet, but the psycho fell back on the sidewalk with his tongue sticking out of his mouth; around it he made choking sounds that sounded to me like his former speaking-in-tongues babble.

"He tried to kill us!" my classmate cried. "He just tried to fucking kill us!"

"I know," I squeaked jerkily, feeling my shoulders trembling violently with a dangerous mixture of adrenaline, rage, and an unholy fright that refused to go away. "Trust me, I know—and that's why I did what I had to. Before I die of a heart attack, I should probably warn you that you'll be getting my bill sometime soon."

"Ha ha, very funny," my classmate snorted, rolling his eyes in reluctant amusement. "Seriously, though, thanks..."

"I'm not kidding about the heart attack! I feel like my heart wants to explode," I panted, clutching my chest. "Isn't that a sign of one? Or maybe a stroke?"

"Kids like us don't get heart attacks and strokes," the boy shakily replied, absently rubbing his own chest, "so it's probably the adrenaline rush."

The man on the sidewalk was already on his elbows and trying to get up again, so I did the honors this time and kicked his left arm out from under him. After that, I twisted my leg and brought it high up above my head—moving like an incredibly flexible martial artist—before I brought it down again and stomped on his head with my heel.

The perfectly-aimed blow made a clean hit, and it definitely should have knocked him unconscious.

Before I could say more, however, another explosion filled the air.

This time I was almost positive it had come from Logan Airport, which was located on the other side of Boston Harbor. When both of us flinched down in fright, the lunatic took the opportunity to sit up. He was jerkily crawling to his feet when I noticed what he was doing and administered a clumsy roundhouse kick that planted the flat of my dress shoe squarely in the center of his chest.

It knocked him back down again, but this time the lunatic snatched my foot before I could pull it away.

Before I could react, the man's mouth locked onto my shoe and he bit me.

"HIYEEEEEK! Help, help, he's got my shoe!" I shrieked hysterically, trying to kick the loony off of me. I know for a fact that he would have pulled me down and then perhaps crushed me in a bear hug or something if my new companion hadn't seized me under the arms, keeping me away from him. The blonde boy pulled, trying to help me get free of the lunatic's grasp as two more cars crashed behind us and several bloodcurdling screams of agony erupted. "Please, get him off of me! Help!"

"I can't get you free!" my classmate hissed into my ear, breathing hard as he pulled with all of his might. Car alarms, fire alarms, and clanging burglar alarms all echoed in the city around us as sirens whooped in the distance. "He's too strong!"

"HELP ME!" I wailed in terror, spastically kicking at the lunatic's bleeding head with my free leg. "EEK! The jerk's actually starting to bite through my shoe! Get him off! Get him off! God damn it—get him off!"

Suddenly a policeman was beside me: one of the responders from across the street, I figured.

As the man dropped to one blue knee beside the babbling lunatic—who had my foot an a death grip—I felt something very much like love for the cop. I was so grateful that he'd taken the time to come over here and help me, that he'd even noticed I was in trouble in all the other chaos, I could have kissed him on the mouth.

"Be careful!" my classmate instantly cried. "He's—"

"I know very well what he is, kid," the officer grimly replied, and I watched as he looked at the lunatic and leaned close to him—almost seeming to offer himself to the madman's wrath. "Hey, buddy, how ya doin' today? I mean, what's the happs?"

"Rast!" the lunatic snarled, dropping it my dress shoe and lunging at the cop with bared teeth.

The instant he did this, however, the police officer slipped the muzzle of his gun into the hollow of the lunatic's temple and pulled the trigger. I flinched back, staring wide-eyed with shock as a great spray of blood leapt through the graying hair on the opposite side of the lunatic's head. He fell back to the sidewalk in slow motion, throwing both of his arms out melodramatically as if to say, _Look, Ma, I'm dead_.

Suddenly feeling weak with nausea and fear, I leaned against my classmate's chest where the two of us had fallen and clung to him.

I didn't even care that he wrapped his arms around me and rocked me like my mom used to do when I was little.

My hair hung across my face in messy strands, looking like a weathered curtain as I began to cry. I didn't calm down for several minutes—but after I'd recovered and wiped my eyes, he helped me up and the two of us looked at the officer. The man had holstered his weapon and was taking a leather case from the breast pocket of his uniform, but I was glad to see that the hand he used to do this was shaking a little. I was frightened of the deputy now, but I would have been utterly terrified if his hands had been any steadier.

What had just happened was no isolated case, either: the gunshot seemed to have done something to my hearing, cleared a circuit in it or something. Now I could hear other gunshots, isolated cracks punctuating the escalating cacophony of the day. The cop shakily took a card from the slim leather case before putting the case back into his breast pocket. He held the card out to us between the first two fingers of his left hand while his right hand once more dropped to the butt of his service weapon.

Near his highly-polished shoes, blood from the lunatic's shattered head was pooling on the sidewalk.

"How badly was your foot bitten?" the officer asked, looking straight into my eyes. "Did he break the skin?"

"No, he didn't even manage to scrape my foot," I replied in a trembling voice. "He only got my shoe."

"Okay, then," the officer stated, flashing a light in my eyes and checking my reflexes. "What's your name?"

"Eh?" I asjed, rubbing my nose and trying not to cry. "Um... Luna Nightingale Collins."

"Can you tell me who the president is?" the cop demanded.

"Barack Obama," I replied promptly.

"Can you tell me today's date?" he inquired.

"It's the first of October, 2014," I stated, blinking in confusion, "but why is that—?"

"And your name, sir?" the cop interrupted, looking at the blonde boy beside me.

"I'm Taylor Kenji, but everyone calls me TK," my classmate replied. "Do you know what the hell is happening?"

"Can you name the man who ran against the president in the last election?" the cop demanded, ignoring his question.

"John McCain, but what—" TK tried to begin.

"Who is Brad Pitt married to?" the cop demanded, cutting him off.

"How the hell should I know?!" Taylor finally shouted in frustration. "I'm not a god damn diva who watches that shit, so for all I know it was probably some slutty movie star! Seriously, man, who gives a fuck about that right now?! I mean, it's like the whole world just went nuts right in front of us! The world's coming down, and that's what you decide to ask me?! Jesus!"

"The world _has_ gone nuts," the cop retorted, scowling a little as he handed his card to the blonde boy. "I'm Officer Ulrich Ashland, and this is my business card. You kids may be called upon to testify about what just happened here: what happened was that you needed assistance, I rendered it, I was attacked, so I responded. Although, I doubt it'll matter after this is over."

"You wanted to kill him?" I asked in a small voice, looking up at him with frightened eyes. "Officer, what the hell is going on here?!"

"Yes'm, and we're putting as many of them out of their misery as fast as we can," Officer Ashland agreed, face instantly becoming grim as he stared at me. "If you tell any court or board of inquiry that I said that, I'll deny it—but it has to be done right away. The only things we're sure of at this point is this: even though they're moving and walking, the hearts of the affected are no longer beating. They usually attack using their teeth, but they've been seen using weapons."

As if to enforce that statement, there was another gunshot from across the street.

The sound paused for a second, but then three more gunshots fired in rapid succession and a scream erupted from the shadowed forecourt of the Four Seasons Hotel—which was now a tangle of broken glass, broken bodies, crashed vehicles, and spilled blood.

I shivered violently and whined.

"Jesus Christ," Taylor Kenji breathed, eyes going wide. "You mean those people are... are... z-z-z-z-zombies?!"

"You got it, kid: just like in the movies and video games," Officer Ashland muttered, shaking his head as his expression twisted in fear and anger. "You kids have seen the Walking Dead, right? Everyone I know has, and so have a few adults, so remember how the people in that show survived. Use whatever strategies you can to make it out of this city alive: that's the only advice I can give you besides not getting bit by one of them."

"Ulrich, get over here! We gotta go to Logan! All units!" a cop on the other side of the street called urgently.

Officer Ashland checked for traffic, but there was no longer any cars going down the streets. Except for the car wrecks, Boylston street was momentarily deserted. From the surrounding areas, however, came the sound of more explosions and automotive crashes; the smell of smoke was getting stronger.

"You kids get inside and get under cover," he shouted at us, giving a forceful wave. "You were really lucky that I saw what was happening to you, but you may not get lucky like that again! Be careful, and stay away from the populated areas!"

"Officer Ashland, wait!" I cried, taking a frantic step toward him and waving my hands in protest. "Policemen don't use cell phones, do they?!"

Ashland stopped and regarded me from the center of Boylston Street—not, in my own opinion, a safe place to be standing in, considering a runaway bus had just shredded through that same spot only seven minutes earlier.

"No," he called back, patting the radio that hung at his belt, "we have radios!"

"Don't use any of your cell phones!" I instantly shrieked at him; he abruptly met my frightened gaze. "Tell the other police officers that they can't use their cell phones, ever again! You have to tell them right now! Don't use any cell phones!"

"Why would you say that?!" he demanded loudly. "Why would you want us not to use our cell phones?"

"Because _they_ were!" I shrieked, pointing to the dead woman and unconscious blonde girl. "These people were all talking on their cell phones right before they went completely crazy! And I'll bet you anything that the guy with the knife—"

"Ulrich!" the cop on the other side of the street screamed. "Hurry the fuck up!"

"You kids get under cover, and don't get bit by anyone!" Officer Ashland shouted before he trotted to the Four Seasons' side of the street. "Good luck!"

I wish I could have repeated the thing about the cell phones one more time, but on the whole I was just glad to see Ulrich Ashland out of harm's way. Not that I believed anybody in Boston really was, not this afternoon. I turned away after a moment and looked for my shoe, hopping around on one foot to keep my white knee-length stocking from touching the dirty ground.

When I finally spotted the shiny black dress shoe, I hopped over to it, struggling in vain to keep my balance.

"What the heck are you doing?" TK asked when I hopped past him and made it to where my shoe was lying. "Hey, get away from him! Seriously, he might be… I don't know, contagious now or something! He was a zombie, right?!"

"I'm not going to touch him," I said simply, trying to keep my voice even despite the urge to go hysterical, "but I need to get my shoe back."

The dress shoe was lying near the splayed fingers of the lunatic's left hand, but at least it was away from the exit-spray of blood. I bent down on one foot before I delicately hooked my fingers into the back of the shoe and shakily pulled it over to me. Then I hopped backward and sat on the curb of Boylston Street—right where the Mister Softee truck had been parked in what seemed to me like another lifetime—and slipped my stocking-clad foot into it.

I felt extremely sick afterwards.

"Hey, are you okay?" TK asked, peering down at my face from underneath his bandana. "You look green."

"I'm okay," I stated in an unnaturally calm voice, lifting my head and trying to maintain a sense of dignity. "Its just, the stupid nutcase broke the laces on my shoe."

However, I was startled when tears unexpectedly began streaming down my cheeks and I had to touch my face just to see if I was really crying. Mortified that I was letting such a strong emotion break through my expressionless mask, I shamefully buried my face in my hands and tried to hide my tears from my classmate. Still, I couldn't hold back the fear or pain, and my shoulders wouldn't stop shaking.

"H-hey, don't do that! It'll be okay!" TK instantly stammered, awkwardly patting my slender shoulder. "We'll find you some new shoes, so do the best you can until we get out of here, all right? Can you tie the laces close to the bottom?"

"Y-yes, I think so," I hiccuped, pathetically rubbing my eyes. "I don't think they'll last much longer, though."

"No worries," TK said gently, rubbing my shoulders as I cried my eyes out. "It'll be okay."

"What's that sound?" I suddenly asked, finally rubbing my nose before I looked around with nervous eyes. "Do you hear it?"

"What do you mean?" TK inquired, hesitantly following my searching gaze. "What sound?"

"That buzzing noise," I explained, looking around and peering in every direction when it started growing louder. "Where the heck is it coming from?"

In truth, I had been hearing a mechanical mosquito whine for the last few minutes without paying attention to it, but now the sound was slowly growing deeper to an approaching drone. I craned neck back after wiping my eyes, looking up at the sky over my shoulder. However, my eyes widened and I jerked up in shock, mouth dropping open and expression becoming blank. TK glanced at my stunned expression and turned around, looking at the sky before going rigid the way I had. The caravan of BPD cars pulling away from the Four Seasons halted in front of City Lights and the crashed double-decker bus with their gumballs flashing.

Cops leaned out of their car windows and survivors stopped dead in the streets, all with identical expressions of shock and terror.

A private airplane had slowly come cruising over the buildings between Boston Harbor and the Boston Common, utterly off course and dropping slowly.

The plane banked drunkenly over the park, its lower wing almost brushing the top of an autumn-bright tree before settling into the canyon of Charles Street—as if the pilot had decided the road was a new runway. Less than twenty feet above the ground, it tilted left and the wing on that side struck the façade of a gray stone building on the corner of Charles and Beacon.

Any sense that the plane was moving slowly and almost gliding departed in that instant: it spun around on the caught wing as savagely as a tetherball nearing the end of the rope, slammed into the red-brick building standing next to the gray one, and disappeared in bright petals of fire. The shockwave hammered across the park; ducks took wing before it.

"Let's get out of here," I whispered, staring at the boiling inferno on the far side of Boston Common. "Come on. We have to get out of here!"

Only the tail of the airplane stuck out of the fire, but it was quickly being incinerated. Before it vanished, I saw the identification tag LN6409B, and above it was an icon that looked like some sports team's logo. Then the tail was gone, and I could feel the first waves of heat gently beginning to wash against my face: somehow, the world was falling apart and burning down right in front of me.

"Yeah, we should go," TK agreed with a vacant expression, gently grabbing my shoulder and leading me away. After a few moments of walking, I smoothed out my skirt and straightened my blazer before pulling out of his grasp. When he glanced at me with raised eyebrows, I ignored his questioning look and started walking in the direction I'd been heading at three o'clock—eighteen minutes and an eternity ago.


	3. Chapter 2: Go Ask Alice

**Chapter Two: Go Ask Alice**

Shockingly enough, on our way through the city, I spotted a savagely looted Chinese Souvenir Shop: because of that, I managed to get my hands on a sixteen-inch Katana sword that had been left completely ignored. It even had a sheathe and a waist-strap, despite being a relic to show off: the price tag also said it cost more than three thousand dollars, and after checking it, I realized with a feeling of immense delight that it was the real thing. Most zombie apocalypse movies have people using guns, but in the end, everyone either dies or there's only one or two people left.

However, from the time I was a little girl all the way up to the present, the only talent I've ever really had was my flexibility.

And according to the man who practically raised me after my mother's actions destroyed our family, flexibility was all I'd really needed to be a sword fighter.

From the time I was seven, I've been taught how to fight by a professional Japanese Martial Artist named Raolin Busujima.

I still remember the day I first met him, too: when I had been a little girl, I had been upset since Jonathan and Amelia had started ignoring me. After all, our mother had told them that it was my fault that our dad had run off, so they'd literally just acted like I no longer existed. I had been so mad and so frustrated that I'd ended up getting into a fight with another neighborhood boy: little to my knowledge, an Asian man who'd been on his way out of a grocery store had stopped to watch the fight.

However, his interest hadn't been piqued because of what I had been doing. I mean, honestly, I'd lost that fight and ended up with a bloody nose.

Which is bad, considering my type of albinism comes with a side-effect similar to hemophilia.

No, he had simply been interested because of how I'd _dodged_ two of the boy's punches: after the kid had pushed me down and run off, the Japanese man had walked up to me and asked several questions, the first and foremost being about my flexibility. However, when I'd blinked and shown him what I could do, the look on his face had been priceless: his jaw had legitimately dropped before he'd caught himself.

I mean, come on: anyone would be in shock after seeing a little girl sit on her own head and twist her arms behind her back.

That day, he introduced himself to me, and he asked if I could take him to my house so he could talk to my parents.

And being the naive dope that I was back then, I'd led him straight to my doorway: my mother had very nearly shit a brick when she'd seen that hulking six-foot-four Japanese man standing beside me with his arm on my shoulder, but when he'd explained his reasons for coming, she'd actually forced me on him instead of being skeptical. After all, having me in a Dojo for six to twelve hours a day would pretty much ensure that I was almost never home.

Then again, in the end, that Dojo is where I truly felt safest.

Despite his stoic and extremely rough demeanor, Master Busujima was an amazingly gentle man: he really seemed to understand how bad it made me feel to know that my family didn't want me. I mean, whenever I'd gone to the Dojo to get away from the negativity being directed at me, he'd never asked me why... and even during the times when I'd come to the Dojo after it had already closed, he had merely knelt in front of his treasured sword without asking me anything.

During the times when I showed up again after going home, he hadn't exactly been eager to continue teaching me martial arts and swordplay since negative emotions could cloud a fighter's judgement. So, he had instead taught me how to read, write, and speak in Japanese. My favorite of those teachings, however, was Kanji: in a way, Japanese Calligraphy is almost identical to art, which is something else that I adore.

He was literally the father I'd never had, and I'd told him so only a week before going on this field trip.

After I'd said it, he'd set his hand on my head for the first time ever and gently run his fingers through my hair before walking off with a stiff back.

Which was something, according to one of the people working in the Dojo, that he'd only ever done for his real daughter, Saeko.

Actually, now that I think about it, that's a story in itself since Master Busujima showed me a picture of his real daughter last year.

I can honestly say, without fail, that she is literally the prettiest Asian girl I've ever seen: she has long black hair, around the same length as my own, and sharp blue eyes that somehow manage to look cold _and_ gentle at the same time. Master Busujima talked to me about his daughter several times over the years, but it was mostly about how to respond to the letters he received from her. He'd also told me once that it would be nice if the two of us could meet someday: meeting Saeko had always been an exciting prospect for me, but now, because of everything that was suddenly going on around me, I knew I'd probably never get the chance.

However, even though all of this was in the past, I knew for a fact that my knowledge on sword fighting would come in handy now.

I had been blessed, and since Master Busujima didn't use a cell phone, I knew he could keep himself safe until I made it back home.

So, with these thoughts in mind, I eagerly strapped the Katana to my waist and led a very baffled Taylor Kenji out of the shop.

Without further ado, the two of us started hurrying off in the direction of the Atlantic Avenue Inn.

"Where are we going?" TK asked after a few moments of walking in complete silence. "When all of this shit started happening, I was thinking we should head for the T-station subway since I have an uncle who lives in Malden, but now I'm not so sure if being underground is such a good idea."

"I agree with that," I stated, looking at the green-painted kiosk about a block ahead of us where a small crowd of people were fearfully milling around. "The Inn is still about five blocks further up: if any of our classmates or teachers are still alive, I'm almost positive that they'll be taking shelter there."

"Right, then let's go!" TK murmured, cracking his knuckles. "I'll keep us safe."

"We can check the television for news," I sighed, tiredly rubbing my eyes. "I want to call my family and my kendo teacher."

"On the room phone?" TK instantly asked, head snapping down to look at me. "Seriously?"

"Yeah," I wearily replied, looking at him as my eyebrows furrowed confusion. "I don't own a cell phone."

"Well, I left my phone at home because my uncle's cat knocked it off the counter last time he came to visit," TK muttered, sighing as a relieved expression crossed his features. "I was so pissed that my uncle's dumb cat shattered the screen back then, but now I'm actually glad that his cat is a klutz. But still, are you sure that the phones in our rooms will be… uh, you know... safe?"

I froze in alarm since I hadn't even considered that idea.

I was just about to respond when a sudden brawl broke out at the T-station up ahead: there were cries of panic, bloodcurdling screams, and more of those snarling groans. I recognized it for what it was now: the signature sound of swarming zombies. Then the little knot of people broke up: a couple with their arms wrapped around each other tore away from the scene, fearfully snatching looks over their shoulders as they went. More—most—ran into the park in different directions, which sort of broke my heart.

I somehow felt better about the couple with their arms around each other.

Still at the T-station was a group of blue-skinned cannibals, who were currently tearing apart a screaming old man and woman.

However, there was also as a bleeding man wearing a business suit backing away from a teenage black girl who was—to my extreme surprise and relief—wearing my high school's standard uniform. She and the business man were currently exchanging some very harsh words, and even though the black girl was severely undersized, she looked pissed.

Eventually it got to the point where she shoved him back a step.

"God damn it, just let her go and give her back to me before you turn into one of those things!" the black girl screamed, glasses dangling off her nose. "That kid ain't even yours, and her mother handed her to _me_ just before she turned into one of those monsters, so give her back!"

"No way in hell!" the man barked. "She's mine now!"

I twitched in alarm when I saw a little girl with curly red hair screaming and crying in the man's arms: she was flailing her hands towards the black girl.

"Are you a pedophile or something?!" the black girl snapped, clenching her fists. "Seriously, let her go! You got bit just a second ago, didn't you?!"

"Fuck off, you stupid NIGGER BITCH!" the man bellowed, jerking the child out of reach. "The world's going to hell, and I found her, so she's mine now!"

"The _fuck_ did you just call me?!" the black girl shrieked, eyes widening in outrage. "Oh, HELL naw!"

As Taylor and I stood watching from half a block away, the pretty teenager brought her palm straight up into his nose and shoved it into his brain, killing him almost immediately. When he dropped, the black girl caught the crying little redhead in her arms before darting in the direction of our own destination. The elderly couple who'd been snagged by the undead had already fallen silent and were slowly crawling around, pupils wide and dilated.

The remaining few fell to fighting with each other.

This brawl had the hysterical, killing viciousness I'd already seen, but there was no discernible pattern: they groaned and bit at each other—ripping dead flesh from each other's bodies without even feeling it. I watched with huge eyes when one of _Them_ grabbed another's ears like a pair of jug handles: the action sent both of them backward into the gloom of the T-station stairwell.

They went out of sight, locked together like cats in heat.

"Come on," TK croaked, twitching my blazer with an odd delicacy. "Let's get to the other side of the street before they notice us or something!"

And so we did: we ducked and dodged around the hordes, but as we went, I noticed something odd.

"Look!" I whispered, pointing at a group of infected; they were swarming towards a building where several bloodcurdling screams were coming from. "TK!"

"What is it?!" he whispered back, following my finger. "What?"

"They're only following the sound!" I whispered, eyes widening when I made an important connection. "There are normal people running away from them, but instead of going after the ones who are trying to get away, they're all moving towards the places where lots of people are screaming! See it?!"

"Whoa!" he exclaimed, then clamped both hands over his mouth; he began again after a moment, albeit more quietly. "What does it mean?"

Almost immediately, I got an idea and looked around for a stone.

When I spotted one, I picked it up, gauged the distance between myself and the nearest zombie, and threw the rock with all of my strength. It hit the undead woman on the arm, but she didn't even twitch: merely continued shuffling on towards the building in front of her. Then, after picking up another stone, I threw it at a nearby car: a deafening clang echoed down the street, but the reaction was almost instantaneous. All of the infected who'd been heading for the building immediately turned and shuffled towards the car.

"Holy shit," I whispered, shuddering violently from the shock. "I knew it! They're blind, and they can't feel anything! They only react to sound since all of their other senses are dead! It makes sense! Come on, Taylor, let's get the hell out of here while we still can!"

And so, we went.

Above the Common, Boylston Street had become so choked with cars—both those that had been wrecked, and those that were simply abandoned—that we no longer had to worry about kamikaze limos or rogue double-decker buses. In truth, that much was a huge relief to me, but there was still a lot of other hazards to worry about: all around us, the city banged and crashed like New Year's Eve in hell. There was plenty of noise close by, as well—car alarms and burglar alarms, mostly.

The street itself was, for the moment, eerily deserted.

We traveled the last block to the school meeting spot, but the doors of the Atlantic Avenue Inn were locked.

I was so surprised that, for a moment, I could only stand there trying to turn the knob and feeling it slip through my fingers. I tried to get the idea through my head, but I couldn't: the doors of the hotel were locked when I was in serious danger of being killed in this madness. TK stepped up beside me and leaned his forehead against the glass to cut the glare before peering inside and looking around.

From the north came another one of those monster explosions, but this time I only twitched.

"Two dead guys on the floor, and a dead boy wearing our school uniform," he announced in a grim voice. "The first guy's wearing a bellhop uniform, but he looks too old to be a bellhop. Do you think it's safe to try going inside right now?"

"I don't want anyone to carry my fucking luggage," I snapped, angrily shaking the doorknob. "I just want to go up to my room, God damn it!"

TK made an odd little snorting sound, and I looked at him with curious eyes despite my irritation.

After a moment, I realized that the sound was smothered laughter and I let out an exasperated sigh before joining him in peering through the door windows. The lobby wasn't very big: on the right side of the room was a pair of elevators and on the left was the reception desk. On the floor was a turkey-red rug, and the two men lay facedown on this: the old bellhop, with one foot on the couch and a framed Currier & Ives sailing-ship print on his ass, and my teacher—Mr. Armstrong—with his neck snapped almost parallel to his body. A cute boy with frizzy brown hair and freckles stared at the ceiling in the corner, blue eyes wide and mouth open with a frozen look of horror on his handsome-but-obviously-dead face.

It was Aaron Minnie, captain of my high school's football team.

When TK began to hammer on the glass instead of just slapping it, I put a hand over his fist.

"Don't bother, Taylor," I sighed dejectedly. "They're not going to let us in, even if they're still alive."

"You don't get it, do you?" TK inquired, looking at me skeptically. "You really don't get it."

"Get what?" I asked, cocking my head to the side and raising an eyebrow in confusion. "Seriously, what's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that things have changed," he stated firmly, gently pushing my hand off his own. "They can't keep us out now."

"They can if they're afraid we're nuts like the _rest_ of Boston," I pointed out, folding my arms. "Especially since _they_ have the keys."

I watched with a small pout as my classmate pressed his forehead against the glass once again.

"Hey!" he suddenly bellowed, surprising me with the fact that his voice could be so alarmingly deep, strong, and masculine. "If someone is hiding in here right now, you'd better open up the god damn door! We're students of the school who rented this building for the night! Open the door or I'm going to grab a curbstone and break the glass! Do you hear me?! I'll break in here if I have to!"

"A curbstone?" I scoffed in amazement, involuntarily beginning to giggle. "Did you really just say you'd break the door in with a _curbstone?"_

"Yeah," TK snorted, scowling at me before pounding on the glass again. "So what if I did?"

Shockingly enough, I burst into a serious fit of giggling despite the fact that I didn't want to.

I couldn't really help it: at the moment I had the option to either laugh, cry, or scream my head off, so I chose the lesser of three evils.

A sudden movement caught my eye and I turned around with a start: a girl with dyed pink hair and a local prep school uniform was standing a little farther up the street. She was looking at us out of haggard but beautiful teal eyes… but there was also a vast bib of blood on the front of her blazer, and more dark blood was crusted on her nose, lips, and under her chin. Still, she didn't look like she was hurt, and she didn't seem to be a zombie... she just looked shocked—shocked almost to death.

"Hey, are you all right?" I called, taking a few steps toward her. "Are you hurt?!"

She took a corresponding step backwards, but I couldn't really blame her under the circumstances. I stopped and held up a small hand and mimed stay put like a traffic cop; TK noticed her but chose to continue trying to get inside the inn. After a moment of glancing, he began hammering on the door again—this time hard enough to rattle the glass in its old wooden frame and make his reflection shiver.

"Last chance," he cried, blue eyes flashing angrily, "after that, we're coming in!"

I was mildly surprised when the black girl I'd seen earlier cautiously rose a little and peered at us from behind the reception counter; a few seconds later, however, she leapt up from behind desk and pulled a balding man up by the shoulder. For a moment, the two of them seemed to be arguing with each other, mouths moving frantically. Heart pounding with hope, I dug into my blazer pocket and pulled out the room key my teacher had given me on the way out: the green plastic Atlantic Avenue Inn fob was soon hanging down in front of the glass. The man glanced at me for a moment, looked at it, and moved forward, using the pass-through at the end of the desk.

He quickly crossed the carpet to the door, but detoured around the bodies.

After watching him walk for a moment, I truthfully believed I might have been witnessing the first reluctant scurry, ever. When the desk clerk reached the other side of the door, he looked from TK to me. Although he didn't appear particularly reassured by what he saw, he produced a ring of keys from one pocket, flicked rapidly through them, found one, and used it on his side to unlock the door. When TK reached for the handle, the bald clerk held his hand up and glared evilly until he stopped moving.

After that, he found a second key, used it in another lock, and opened the door.

"Come in, but hurry it up and get behind the desk," he said snappishly, then glared at the pink-haired girl who was lingering at a distance and watching all of us warily. "Not her, though: she's not welcome to come inside this hotel."

"Yes, her!" I snapped right back, shooting him a dangerous glare before I turned to wave the girl forward. "Come on, Miss! Hurry! Okay?!"

She didn't budge an inch after I beckoned her, though—and when I took a step toward her, she whirled around and took off running. The navy-blue skirt of her school uniform flapped as her curtain of long, dyed pink hair fanned out: after she disappeared around the corner, Taylor grabbed my shoulders and pulled me into the Inn before I could go after her.

"Come on," he muttered, lifting me into the air and ignoring my protests after I started struggling. "Let's go."

"Put me down! Right now!" I protested, kicking my legs in horror. "She could die out there!"

"Not my problem," the desk clerk snapped with a silver-eyed glare; I noticed immediately that he had a snobby, fussy, I-wish-I-were-British Boston accent. "Are you coming or not, Miss Collins? Because I could change my mind and leave you out there if you'd like."

"It's Luna," I snapped with a burning glare of my own; then I faltered and stared at him with wary eyes. "Hold up: how the hell do you know my last name? I never even had time to say anything about it."

"I know the names of everyone who was registered to stay the night here," the man sniffed, tilting his nose up. "It's my job as the clerk."

I was extremely startled when the black girl charged over to me with round brown eyes and threw her arms around my neck with a cry of delight.

"Luna Collins!" she squealed, practically strangling me in a bear hug. "Oh, my Gawd! I'm so glad that at least someone from our class is all right!"

"Um, hi?" I asked in a wheezing voice, awkwardly patting her shoulder as she squeezed me to the point of asphyxiation. "No offense, but who are you?"

"I'm Charity! We're in the same class, but until now, we haven't really talked to each other!" the black girl explained, pulling away so she could look down at me with frightened eyes; they were truthfully so brown that they looked almost black. "My name is Charity Hope Faith Mitchell, woman, and don't you ever forget it! Especially considering z-zombies are walking around!"

"Pleasure," I said sincerely, peeling myself out of her bone-crushing grip. "I'm glad that we bumped into you. Taylor and I saw that fight in front of the station."

"Taylor?" Charity asked, then glanced at the blonde boy and gasped. "Oh, wow! TK! You're all right!"

"Yeah, somehow," he croaked, pulling his bandana almost all the way down over his eyes. "Still have no fucking clue what to think, though... it's unreal."

"What happened to everyone else?" I asked, looking up at her and nervously biting my lip. "Have you seen any of our other classmates? Or Mrs. Kensington?"

"E-everyone on the bus except for me is either dead or... um, one of _Them," _Charity whispered, swallowing hard and looking down at the ground from behind her pink, half-moon glasses. "After Justin Carmichael got bit, we hid on the bus, but... he... he started coughing up blood, and then all of a sudden, he was dead. Then, he like, sat up again and... and tried to kill me! I swear to god, I just barely made it out of the open window. My hands are still shaking."

"Oh, God," I whimpered, slowly sinking into a squat and clutching my hair with enormous eyes. "Are you serious?! What the hell is going on here?!"

"Anyway, after I got out of there, everyone who got bit started killing each other," Charity continued, shuddering violently. "Everyone from homeroom started pounding on the glass, but... well, let's just saw there was a lot of blood smears on the windows. I literally wanted to book it and get the fuck out of there, but a woman who got bit by one of those _things_ literally thrust her baby girl into my arms and shot herself. When I set her down and tried to grab my cellphone to call the cops, some random guy who was running past snatched her right off the ground."

"So, you chased him to the station?" TK asked, mouth twisting in dismay. "That's fucked up! What the hell was he trying to do?!"

"Fuck if I know!" Charity scoffed, shaking her head; her frizzy black curls bounced with the movement. "At any rate, my cellphone got smashed into pieces because that fucker crashed into me! Then he crashed into one of those Zombies, and he ended up getting bit. The whole world's gone nuts!"

"Where's the little girl you saved?" I asked, slowly standing back up and straightening my stockings. "Is she okay?"

"Yeah," Charity confirmed, nodding her head before running over to the desk and picking up an adorable redhead with extremely long hair and large teal eyes. "This little ginger's name is Alexis O'Grady: I made her a promise just a few minutes ago that I'd keep her safe. I'm not sure how, since those undead bitches be running around out there like psychos jacked up on PCP, but if we stick together, maybe we have a shot."

"Sticking together is a necessity," I stated calmly, giving her a firm look. "We need to be extremely careful."

"Alexis, these are some friends of mine," Charity stated, hefting the little girl up and pointing at me and TK. "That's Luna Collins—who's got a rep as the smartest girl in our entire school, and that's Taylor Kenji: his father is a famous fencer!"

"Hello," the red-head said shyly before burying her face in Charity's blazer, obviously embarrassed by the attention. "I'm... Alex."

"A fencer?" I asked, instantly glancing up at the blonde boy in startled surprise. "Wait, do _you_ know how to fence? Were you trained in European Swordplay?"

"That, and also how to shoot a few guns," Taylor admitted. "My mother was a marine, and my father was an Olympics swordsman, so they made me take lessons."

"Sorry to interrupt this happy little trip down memory lane, but that dead man is Franklin," The desk clerk said to the two of us, indicating the white-haired man wearing the uniform as he led the way around the two men lying dead on the carpet. "He's been with the Inn for thirty-five years, as I'm sure he told every guest he ever checked in. Most of them twice."

"What happened here?" I asked slowly, looking at the gruesome scene with sickened eyes. "How did all of this happen?"

"To put it simply, a deranged man came out of the elevator," the bald clerk said, once more using the pass-through to get behind the desk: back there was apparently where he felt the most at home. "He was one of the crazy ones, but Franklin and the kid had the bad luck of standing right there in front of the doors—"

"Excuse me," Taylor interrupted, glowering at the man, "but I don't suppose it ever crossed your mind to at least take the damn picture off his ass, did it?"

I blinked and watched as the blonde boy bent down, picked up the Currier & Ives print, and set it lightly on the couch. At the same time, he gently brushed the dead bellman's foot off of the couch cushion and it fell to the floor with a dull thud. I instantly felt my stomach lurch and I nearly vomited, feeling extremely sick all of a sudden.

"The man in the elevator ripped that man's throat out with his teeth," the desk clerk shakily admitted, continuing on as though he hadn't heard the blonde. "Franklin came up behind him and smashed his head in with a vase, but the teacher... he got back up, even though his throat was gaping open wide. When he killed Franklin, that poor kid right there tried to restrain him and the ended up getting thrown into the wall. I think the boy shattered his neck when he hit it, but that's what dislodged the picture."

"How the hell did our teacher end up dead, then?" I instantly asked, glancing at the spot where the man had fallen. "How?!"

"I killed him by smashing his head in with another vase," the bald man replied curtly, looking at us with a combination of fear and gossipy greed that I found to be singularly distasteful. "After that… well, let's just say that all hell broke loose outside. What's happening, and how bad has it gotten?"

"I think that you must have a pretty damn good idea about how bad it's gotten," I retorted, shooting a pink-eyed glare as the sarcastic side of my personality finally came out. "I mean, seriously, isn't that why you threatened to lock me outside for your own sake?"

"Yes, but—" the man tried to say.

"What are they saying on the television"" TK interrupted, giving me a warning look. "Haven't you tried to look?"

"There's nothing whatsoever: our personal cable's been out—" he glanced at his watch, "—for almost half an hour now. When the gas lines blew, it took out most of the cable connections, so I have no clue what's going on."

"What about the radio?" TK inquired, but the clerk only gave him a prissy you-must-be-joking look. "You seriously don't have a radio in here...?"

"Nope," Charity muttered unhappily. "He don't. Already asked."

An unexpected wail of fear suddenly came from outside, and I whirled around in time to see the pink-haired girl appearing at the door again; her blue-green eyes wild with terror, and she quickly started pounding on the glass with her fists, looking over her shoulder as though something were chasing her.

Taylor bolted for the doors like a madman, clasping the doorknob and jerking on it hysterically.

"It's locked again!" he shouted angrily, turning to the desk clerk. "Unlock it right now!"

"No way!" the desk clerk snapped, firmly crossing both arms over his narrow chest to show how firmly he meant to oppose this course of action. Outside, the girl in the uniform looked over her shoulder again and pounded harder; her blood-streaked face was tight with terror. I watched as TK picked up the busted leg of a wooden chair and held it like a baseball bat.

"Open it right now, you son of a bitch," he hissed at the desk clerk, "or I'll bash your skull in and do it myself."

"God damn it! There's no time for us to deal all of this macho crap!" I finally exploded. "I'll open the door myself, so both of you had better get the fuck back right now! If you don't want to get cut, you'd better move your asses!"

"Are you nuts?!" Charity exclaimed, staring at me askance as she backed away from the windows with Alexis. "What the hell are you saying?!"

"Exactly what you heard!" I shrieked back, tensing my legs. "Now stay the fuck out of my way!"

So speaking, I leapt forward and began running toward the glass doors, drawing the sword I'd pilfered as I charged at them: the girl's teal eyes widened when she saw me coming and cringed away, raising both of her hands to protect her face; at the same instant, the man who'd been chasing her appeared in front of the door. He was an enormous construction worker with a slab of a gut pushing out the front of his yellow T-shirt; he had a greasy salt-and-pepper ponytail bouncing up and down at the back of it.

With a scream of hysterical rage, I swung the blade with all of my strength: the metal hit the glass and shattered through completely, stabbing clean into the construction worker's meaty, yellow-clad left shoulder. I jerked it free and twisted the blade up Just as he grabbed the pink-haired girl by the throat. When he leaned down as if to bite her, I lopped the bastard's arm clean off and the girl managed to pull free of him. However, her dress shoes got tangled together and she went down in a heap—half on the sidewalk and half in the gutter.

I was now standing framed in one of the shattered glass-door panels, breathing heavily.

"Hey, dickweed!" I shouted in an enraged voice, watching as he groaned in a wheezing voice and turned towards me. "Yeah, I'm talking to you, jackass!"

The zombie let out a wheeze of air, but shockingly enough, I didn't have to do any attacking since it actually leapt onto the shimmering blade.

The deadly metal slid smoothly into the hanging, sunburned waddle beneath his chin and released a cold red waterfall that doused my hand. It felt horribly clammy—almost as cold as a freshly poured cup of water—and I had to fight off the urge to jerk away. I felt sick when the Katana ripped through the gristle and came out through the nape of the big man's neck. He fell forward, and I couldn't hold him back with one arm, no way in hell; the guy had to have weighed at least two-ninety—and for a moment he leaned against the door like a drunk against a lamppost.

His brown eyes bulged, his nicotine-stained tongue hung from the corner of his mouth, and his neck spewed as he clacked his teeth in a biting manner.

When his knees came unhinged and he went down, I collapsed to my own knees because I was unable to support his monstrous weight. After a moment, I pulled the sword back out again, but I was amazed by how easily it slid through his body this time. With the lunatic down, I could see the girl: one knee on the sidewalk and the other in the gutter, staring at my bloody sword with huge eyes and screaming through the curtain of pink hair hanging across her utterly pale face.

A decapitated arm was lying next to her.

"Hey! Shhh! Don't do that! You have to be quiet!" I pleaded, lifting a hand in her direction; she went right on screaming until I broke the rest of the glass and slid through the doors in order to run over to her. "Calm down! Please! He's not alive anymore! He wasn't alive in the first place! That thing was a zombie, and if he had bitten you, you would have died, too! Stop screaming! They're DRAWN to SOUND!"

That statement managed to make the girl shut her mouth.

After a few minutes of soothing girl talk, however, she'd calmed down enough to stand up... and after wiping my hand and sword clean of the blood, I slid the weapon back in its sheathe and helped her into the Inn. I was the one who conversed with her since I was the only other girl—but the conversation mostly consisted of me asking questions while she sat mutely, looking down at her knees and shaking her head from time to time.

Eventually I discovered that her name was Alice: she could tell me that much, and she could tell me that she and her mother had come into Boston on the train after she'd gotten done with school to do some shopping—something they often did on Wednesdays. She said they'd gotten off the train at South Station and grabbed a cab, and she told us that the cab driver had been wearing a blue turban.

Apparently, that was the last thing she could remember until I'd begun to calm her down.

I was pretty sure that Alice remembered more: that much was confirmed when TK asked if either she or her mother had been carrying a cell phone, for she instantly began to tremble a little. She claimed to not remember, but I knew that her mom had been using one: everyone did these days, it seemed, even my own brother and mother. I was the only exception because I didn't have anyone to talk to, and then there was TK, who just might have owed his life to the cat that had knocked his cell phone off the counter.

Charity reluctantly put Alexis down so she could help Taylor move the three bodies behind the reception desk, but the black girl dismissed the bald clerk's loud and very bizarre protest 'they will just be under my feet there!' with a roll of her dark brown eyes. The clerk—who had given his name simply as Mr. Ricardi—had since returned to his office, but I'd followed him just long enough to ascertain that he'd been telling the truth about the television being out before I turned to leave him there. Before he'd come to hate me, my older brother would have laughed and said that Mr. Ricardi was brooding in his tent if he'd seen the look on the man's face.

"Now we're open to the world," he said bitterly just as I grabbed the doorknob, halting me in my tracks. "I hope you think you've accomplished something, Miss Luna, because we're all in danger now because of you."

"Mr. Ricardi," I said as patiently as I could, glaring daggers at the door without turning around, "I saw a plane crashing on the other side of the Boston Common not even an hour ago, and it sounds like more planes—bigger ones—are doing the same thing all the way down at Logan Airport. Maybe they're even making suicide runs on the terminal, I don't really know. All I can say is, right now, there are explosions going off all over the city, people are going insane, dying, and _eating_ each other, and nothing is safe right now—not even this hotel. I may be young and my opinion may not matter in your eyes, but I'd say that on _this_ afternoon, all of Boston is open to the world: my choice in saving Alice wouldn't have affected our safety either way."

As if to underline my statement, a very heavy thump slammed into the ceiling above us.

Mr. Ricardi didn't look up; only flapped a begone hand in my direction. With no television to watch, he sat in his desk chair and stared at the wall.

He stared at it even after I'd left the room without speaking another word to him.

However, once I came out, I was hit with the knowledge that I'd killed someone... and the memory of the blood, the sensation of the blade going through his throat... it all came crashing down on me so hard that I locked up. When TK noticed the expression on my face, he immediately hurried over, leaving Alice and Charity where they were in order to do so. When he touched my shoulder, I looked up with blurred vision and opened my mouth to tell him I was all right, but all that came out was a watery squeak.

I swiped an arm across my eyes and tried to talk again, but I managed nothing but another one of those watery squeaks.

The flood from my eyes wouldn't stop anymore.

Me knees started shaking and my whole body trembled as the belated terror I should have been feeling smashed into me.

The world was going to hell... dead people were walking, nothing was safe, and I had no idea whether or not the ones I loved were all right.

"Shhh... it's okay," TK suddenly murmured, unexpectedly drawing me against his chest and gently rubbing my back. "Don't cry... please. I'm scared, too, you know... it's all really insane, but we have to be strong! As of today, things have changed... so, if you need it, my shoulder's right here. Go ahead and let it all out if you really can't h-hold it b-back anymore, k-kay? Hell, I-I'll even... j-join in..."

And so, as we stood there in a decimated hotel filled with dead bodies, we did as he suggested.

I sank down to my knees right along with Taylor Kenji and the two of us cried. I cried the woman in her jogging suit, who had only wanted a sundae. I cried for the two girls with the pixie haircuts, who had been planning a party for a friend and would never get to spring it upon her. I cried for the man who'd grabbed my shoe, and I cried for the people who'd fallen out of the buildings. I cried for the people on the bus and the Mister Softee vendor. I cried for the people who'd died in this chaos and the survivors who were still suffering right outside.

But mostly... I cried for myself, because Boston wasn't my home and my family had never seemed so far away.


	4. Chapter 3: Survival Plans

**Chapter Three: Survival Plans  
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After TK and I had calmed down enough to stop crying, Charity and I moved the bogus Queen Anne chairs against the door: the high-backs did a pretty good job of filling the shattered frames, but it wasn't as though I believed it would do much. However, while I knew that locking the hotel off from the street offered flimsy or downright false security, I also believed that blocking the view off from the street was a good idea. Once the chairs were in place, the two of us lowered the blinds over the lobby's main window.

Alexis watched with her thumb in her mouth as the room dimmed considerably, but she ran over to Charity once we were finished with everything. With the things we needed done seen to, and Alice's radically abridged tale told, I finally raced over to the telephone behind the desk. I glanced at the clock hanging above me and saw that it was 4:22 P.M: it felt like hours since I'd seen the man biting the dog in the park, but it also felt like there was no time at all. However, there was time—and back in Michigan, my family would probably be back at the house.

Master Busujima would most likely be in the Dojo, but if his assistant was doing her job properly, someone would pick up once I called.

However, my first priority was my family: I needed to talk to them, to make sure they were all right and let them know that I was okay, too.

Even if they didn't care about the former.

Those weren't the important things I needed to know, though... and I won't even lie: I was terrified of trying to pick the phone up because of what I'd seen.

Don't get me wrong: making sure my family was safe was a huge deal, but _keeping_ them safe was a different story altogether. My mother didn't know how to use her cell phone most of the time, so she'd given hers to Jonathan in case of an emergency. He was forbidden to turn it on or take it out of his backpack when all of us were at school, but the school hours were over now. Also, Mom had actually encouraged him to take it—partly because of the separation. There might have been emergencies or minor inconveniences, such as a missed bus.

What I had to hang onto was the fact that my mom had laughed with my sister, Amelia, about how my brother's cell phone had been lying forgotten on his desk with no charger and a dead battery. There was no certainty that my sister was all right since Amy had been grounded from her cell due to her last report card, but the thought of my brother's red cell phone ticked away at my mind like an unpleasant bomb of anxiety.

There was a fifty percent chance that my family was either dead, or turning right as I was thinking about it.

When the anxiety lanced through my heart, I touched the landline on the hotel desk, then shakily withdrew my hand.

Outside, something else exploded, but this one was way more distant.

It was like hearing an artillery shell explode when you were well behind the lines.

I glanced across the lobby and saw Taylor squatting with Charity, Alice, and Alexis: they were all sitting clustered together on the sofa, and the blonde boy was murmuring to them quietly. He was looking into their faces as he spoke, and they seemed extremely reassured by whatever it was he was saying. That was good of him: he was a genuinely good person despite his appearance, and I was increasingly glad that I'd run into him. What we all needed to do now was keep a level mentality, which was definitely hard, all things considered.

I mean, fuck: dead people were trying to eat living people, and said living people would become one of them if they got bit.

It was exactly like Dawn of the Fucking Dead!

Still... how had the cellphones caused all this to happen?

"Some sort of electromagnetic radiation?" I wondered aloud, frowning as I thought about it. "Possible, I guess, but a little far-fetched."

I silenced myself almost immediately, since zombies were pretty far-fetched as well.

The landlines were probably all right, but the question was whether 'probably' was good enough.

I had a drunk of a mom and a ditz of an older sister who were sort of my responsibility to take care of, but when it came to my big brother... well, let's just say that there was no 'sort of' at all since he was so reckless. Every time my mind turned to the nineteen-year-old, I felt panic surging up inside my heart. If I could make sure that Amy, Johnny, and my mother were all okay, I could keep the panic down and plan what to do next. I wasn't even worried about my Kendo teacher since he was perfectly capable of defending himself.

After all, he had taught me how to fight: if I could survive using his teachings, he probably had a better shot of surviving than anyone else around me. On top of that, Master Raolin had apparently gotten his daughter, Saeko, enrolled in one of the finest schools in Japan: I personally believed that she might have actually had a shot at surviving the initial panic if she was as diligent in martial arts as her father.

However, if I did something stupid I wouldn't be able to help anyone.

In fact, I would make things worse for the people here without a doubt in the world: if I became a zombie here and now, all of them would very likely end up dead.

Or rather, undead.

I thought about it for a little while, but then I got an idea and called the desk clerk's name.

When there was no answer from the inner office, I called again—but when there was still no answer from him, I lost it.

"I know you can hear me, Mr. Ricardi," I shouted, stomping my foot with an angry expression. "If you make me come in there and get you, I might be irritated enough to consider putting you outside!"

"You can't do that, young lady," Mr. Ricardi called in a tone of surly instruction. "You are a guest of the hotel, and there's _also_ the fact that you're underage."

"Things have changed," I retorted loudly, tapping my foot and folding my arms. "If you haven't figured it out yet, the world is literally ending right in front of us!"

From overhead came an even louder thump, as if somebody had dropped a heavy piece of furniture—a bureau, maybe.

This time everyone looked up, and I thought I heard a muffled shout through the ceiling—or maybe a howl of pain—but if so, there was no follow-up.

_What's on the second floor?_ I wondered, amethyst eyes uneasily flitted over the ceiling. _It's not a restaurant because I remember being told by my teacher that the hotel didn't have one. It has to be a meeting room, if not a café… but if so, then what the hell is going on up there?_

"What do you want?" Mr. Ricardi demanded, sounding grouchier than ever. "Spit it out already!"

"Did you try to call anyone when all of this started happening?" I called back. "On the landline, I mean!"

"Well, of course!" Mr. Ricardi scoffed; he came to the doorway almost immediately in order to give me an indignant glare. "The fire alarms went off—I got them stopped, Doris said it was a wastebasket fire on the third floor—and I called the Fire Department to tell them not to bother. The line was busy! Busy, can you imagine?!"

"You must have been very upset," Charity snorted sarcastically. "It must not have felt good to have a busy phone line when the entire world outside was going to shit."

The sarcastic remark went right over the man's head, and he actually looked mollified for the first time that I'd seen so far.

"Yes," he stated somberly. "That, too... I called the police when things outside started… you know… to go downhill."

"Yeah," I murmured, suddenly feeling like I wanted to cry again. "It all happened so fast. One minute, everything was normal; the next..."

"Did you get an answer?" Taylor asked, turning to look at the clerk. "For the cops, I mean!"

"The first twelve tries hit a busy line," Mr. Ricardi said, and I immediately noticed that the indignation was creeping back into his voice, "on the thirteenth call, a man told me that I'd have to clear the line and then hung up on me."

"What an ass, ass, ass," Charity sang in a loud, obnoxious, opera-like voice; she batted her eyelashes and mockingly clutched her chest while she sang her insult oh-so very poetically to the world of the dead, "hoOoOoOole!"

"Agreed," TK muttered, shaking his head in disbelief. "This is insane! 911 was busy?!"

"Yes: I called again four more times," Mr. Ricardi croaked, trailing off a little; I saw the first tears running down the narrow defiles that marked the sides of the man's nose. "Then, after the... the crazy man came out of the elevator and killed Franklin and the other two, a woman answered. She said that…."

"What? What did she say?" Charity asked, finally sounding worried. "Don't keep a bitch in suspense like this! It ain't doin' any good for my health!"

"She said that if the three of them were dead and none of them had got up again afterwards, then I didn't have a problem," the man explained, furiously wiping his eyes before letting out a sigh. "She was the one who advised me to lock myself in, and she also told me to call the hotel's elevators to lobby level and shut them off, which I did. Then she hung up on me, too. After that, I called my wife in Milton."

"You got through to her, right?" I asked slowly, wanting to be clear on this. "What did you talk about?"

"Yes, I got through, but she was terrified," Mr. Ricardi whispered, shuddering violently as his face started draining of color. "She asked me to come home, but I told her that I'd been advised by the police to stay inside with the doors locked. I told her to do the same thing, to lock up and keep a, you know… a low profile. She begged me to come home, and told me that there were gunshots going off in the street. She said that she'd seen several bloody men chasing a few of the neighborhood children through the Benzyck's front yard—they live right next door to us."

"Oh, God," Taylor whispered, eyes widening in horror. "Are you serious?!"

"She begged me to leave the hotel and come home, but... but..." Mr. Ricardi whispered, rubbing his face with an exhausted look, "I heard a crash... and she screamed only a few moments before the line went dead."

I froze; all of us did.

This man had most likely lost his wife... but I had what I needed: the landlines were safe.

Shaking my cloud-white hair out of my eyes, I put my hand on the telephone—but Mr. Ricardi gently laid his hand over mine before I could even pick it up.

His fingers were long, pale, and very cold: he wasn't done.

"Did you come here by the T?" Mr. Ricardi asked, looking at me with fervent eyes. "I always used the T because it's two blocks down the street. It's very convenient."

"It wouldn't be this afternoon," Taylor snorted, lifting his eyebrows. "After what Luna and I saw out there, you wouldn't get me down there for two million dollars."

"I totally agree with that," Charity immediately confirmed, tying a black-and-white checkered scarf that matched the colors of her uniform onto her head. "While I was trying to rescue Alexis from that crazy pedo-bear, zombies were ripping people's throats out and biting the ones closest to them. No man is ever gonna put their hands on a seven-year-old little girl in front of me, though: I don't give a fuck who it is. Be it Satan, Jesus, or God himself, I'll fuckin' knock the bitch out."

"We're better off in here, at least for the time being," I agreed, nodding again before I glanced at the phone. "Still, I need to make a few calls."

In truth, all I wanted was to get home to my mom, sister, brother, and teacher—and I knew I would let nothing stop me unless something absolutely did. It was like a weight in my mind that had cast an actual shadow on my vision. I picked up the phone and punched 9 for an outside line; after that I dialed a number one, and then a 517—the area code for Eaton County, Michigan.

I dialed my home phone-number immediately afterward.

I crossed my fingers and squeezed my eyes shut in preparation as the phone began to ring: once... twice... thrice...

It rang twenty-four times with no answer, and my heart sank through my shoes when the distinctive three-tone interrupt rang in my ear.

"We're sorry, the person you are calling is not available at the moment," a recorded female voice stated. "Please hang up and try your call again later."

"No..." I whispered, dialing my phone number again a second time; my eyes slowly widened when I got the same result. "No, no, no! NO!"

I dialed it a third time, with no answer.

"Nooo!" I wailed softly, shaking my head in horror. "They're not picking up!"

"Don't worry," Taylor stammered, giving me a soothing look. "They probably got out of there in time!"

"Maybe t-they're at the dojo?!" I whined, I frantically dialing the number for Master Busujima's dojo. "God, please..."

I waited with bated breath... but to my utter joy, someone picked up immediately after the second ring.

"Shhhh!" a female voice whispered, sounding absolutely terrified. "Whoever this is, please, either stay on the line or stop calling us! We really can't afford having the phone ring anymore! I swear to God, there are zombies walking around all over the place, and they're drawn by sound! I'll cut the line if you people keep calling us!"

"Miss Sayuri?!" I squealed, eyes lighting up in hope. " Oh, thank God you're all right!"

"Huh?! W-who is this?!" the female voice choked, sounding thoroughly surprised. "How do you know my name?!"

"It's me, Luna Collins!" I exclaimed, sinking to my knees with an expression of immense relief. "Master Busujima's student!"

"Luna-chan?!" my teacher's assistant gasped. "Oh, dear Lord! Where are you right now?! Have you seen what's been going on?! It's all over the news! Zombies are walking around all over the place, and the infection is already spreading across the world!"

"I'm in Boston!" I cried, leaning forward with terrified eyes. "I'm coming back to Michigan, so please, tell Master Busujima to wait for me! Please!"

"Here, tell him yourself!" the woman stammered. "Okay?"

The sound of the phone shuffling made me swallow hard, and I quickly closed my eyes to fight back the nausea sweeping through me.

Then I heard a familiar deep baritone echoing through the receiver.

"Hello?" my teacher inquired in a low tone. "Who am I speaking to?"

"Sensei! It's me!" I shouted, clutching the phone with both hands. "It's me, Luna! I'm trapped in Boston, Massachusetts right now, but I want you to know that I'm gonna be on my way back to Michigan sometime soon! So, please! Wait for me!"

"Luna," Raolin stated gruffly, voice sounding only mildly relieved. "I knew you'd be all right. Don't worry: Sayuri, myself, and a few families who frequent my dojo have taken shelter here. It's located between two different grocery-stores, as I'm sure you're aware, so we'll try to hold out for as long as possible. I have to go soon, however, because the dead are trying to get in and I'm the only one capable of protecting the families here. Now that I know you're all right, even if everyone else leaves, I will wait for you... for as long as it takes: once you're here, I'll find a way to get us out of this. You have my word."

"Sensei, I'll definitely come!" I stammered, shaking my head. "So, please: be careful, and if you see my family, help them! Please!"

"It will be done," Raolin grunted; the sound of a distant crash and terrified screams filled the phone. "Be safe, my student... and remember everything I taught you!"

With that, the phone dropped and I faintly heard Sayuri letting out a screech of horror.

"Master Busujima!" she wailed, sounding terrified. "Be careful! Don't let them bite you!"

"Don't underestimate me, Yamada-chan," the man cackled in an unfamiliar tone. "You're looking at the head of Busujima clan! My family has protected the throne of Japan for ages! This is nothing to me!"

"Hello?!" I cried, shaking the phone. "Miss Sayuri?! Sensei?! Hello?!"

However, I heard a wheezing groan only a split second before a crash echoed through the receiver: it went dead with a click.

The dial tone soon met my ears.

I shakily let the handset drop to the level of my shoulder, feeling it growing unbearably heavy. Then I put it back in the cradle and turned around to face everyone.

"I'm leaving," I stated in a clear but quiet voice, feeling my eyes watering. "I have to get back to Michigan as soon as possible."

"What?!" Taylor exclaimed, instantly leaping to his feat. "You're crazy!"

"No way, girl!" Charity shrieked, storming over to my side and looking fervently into my eyes. "For one thing, we're relatively safe in the Atlantic Avenue inn—especially with the elevators locked down and lobby access from the stairwell blocked off. Even if a zombie with super strength were to push against that door from the other side, he'd only be able to shift the pile of furniture against the facing wall! That's not enough to get through—and for another thing, the chaos in the city is getting worse!"

"So what?" I demanded, reluctant to admit that she was right: there was a constant racket of conflicting alarms, shouts, screams, racing engines, and there was also sometimes the panic-tinged tang of smoke—although the day's brisk breeze seemed to be carrying the worst of it away from us. There were also more explosions that never came in only one blast—more like huge spasms of four or five—and car accidents were rapidly on the rise.

"You're crazy to even think about leaving now!" TK added, hurrying over and putting his hands on my shoulders. "It's already a quarter past five! The day will be ending soon, and trying to leave Boston in the dark would be madness! Just take a look outside!"

"What's the point?" I muttered under my breath, watching as he gestured to the window which looked out on Essex street: the road was crowded with abandoned cars, and there was also at least one body that I could see. A young woman in jeans and a Red Sox sweatshirt was lying facedown on the sidewalk, both arms outstretched as though she'd died trying to swim.

"Do you think you're going to drive a car in that chaos?" Charity demanded, staring hard into my eyes. "If you do, you'd better think again."

"Your friends are right, Miss Collins," Mr. Ricardi said, once again sitting behind his desk with his arms folded across his narrow chest. "We're employed by the Tamworth Street Parking Garage, so I doubt you'd even succeed in securing a set of keys for any of the vehicles outside."

"I don't need a fucking car, you idiots!" I finally screamed, clutching my head in anger; when they tried to touch me, I drew the Katana sword in a flash. "Don't touch me!"

"Jesus!" Taylor gasped, stumbling backwards in surprised shock. "What the hell are you doing?! Put that away!"

"Holy shit!" Charity gasped, eyes bulging out of her head as she squeezed Alexis tightly around the middle in shock—effectively earning herself a squeal of displeasure from the red-haired little girl. "Where the fuck did you get that thing?! Is that a sword?!"

"Yeah! And I damn well know how to use it! Now, just shut up and listen to me!" I angrily ranted, whirling around and slashing one of the window curtains in a flurry of motion; then I stepped aside and cocked my hip, watching as everyone paled. The drapes had literally fallen to the ground in nearly a hundred fluttering pieces: perfectly cut in a precise manner. "I'm not scared of zombies! I can fight back! And as far as a car is concerned, I might not even need one: I'm athletic enough to run home within a few days if I pace myself properly! I don't need a fucking car, and I don't need your damned concern!"

Alice's blue-green eyes were wide with numbed shock as she stared at me, but before she could even begin to decide whether or not she wanted to say anything, another thump came from overhead—this one heavy enough to make the ceiling shiver. It was accompanied by the faint but very distinctive shiver-jingle of breaking glass.

"Who the fuck is up there?" Charity—who was sitting on the sofa with Alexis calmly resting on her lap again—asked. "That's the ninth time I've heard a thud like that, and I still can't tell where the hell its coming from."

"That would be the Iroquois Room directly overhead," Mr. Ricardi replied stiffly. "It's the largest of our three meeting rooms and the place where we keep all of our supplies—chairs, tables, audio-visual equipment. Although we have no restaurant, we arrange for buffets if clients request such services. That last thump…"

He didn't finish, but as far as I was concerned he didn't need to: that last thump had been a trolley, stacked high with glassware, being upended on the floor of the Iroquois Room, where numerous other trolleys and tables had most likely already been tipped over by some madman who was raging back and forth up there. Alice surprised me by speaking up for the first time in nearly half an hour.

"You said something about someone named Doris earlier," she murmured, sounding thoroughly shaken. "Where is she?"

"Doris Maxwell." Mr. Ricardi nodded. "The head housekeeper. Excellent employee, probably my best. She was on the third floor last time I heard from her."

"Did she have a…?" Alice began, but then stopped with a contorted expression. "A..."

She couldn't say it, so instead she made a gesture that had become almost as familiar as an index finger across a set of lips, indicating the need for silence.

The pink-haired girl put her right hand to the side of her face with the thumb close to her ear and the pinkie in front of her mouth.

"No," Mr. Ricardi stated almost primly, making her sigh in relief. "Employees have to leave them in their lockers while they're on the job. One violation gets them a reprimand, two violations and they can be fired. I tell them this when they're taken on. It's management's policy, not mine."

"Would she have gone down to the second floor to investigate those sounds?" Alice asked, nervously glancing up at the ceiling. "Couldn't she still be... okay?"

"Possibly," Mr. Ricardi said grimly, "but I have no way of knowing. I only know that I haven't heard from her since she reported that the wastebasket fire was out, and she hasn't answered her office phone's pages. I paged her twice thirty minutes ago."

For a long moment, nobody said anything... but then, Alexis started started crying for her mother, and Charity hesitantly tried to soothe her.

"How many people would you say are still upstairs?" Taylor asked worriedly. "One? Two?"

"I have no way of knowing," Mr. Ricardi repeated.

"If you had to guess, then," I sighed, frowning at him. "It doesn't have to be a specific: an estimation would do fine."

"Not many," Mr. Ricardi stated, pressing his lips tightly together. "As far as the housekeeping staff goes, probably just Doris. The day crew leaves at three, and the night crew doesn't come on until six. It's an economy gesture: one cannot say measure because it doesn't work. As for the guests, afternoon is a slack time for us—very slack. Last night's guests have all checked out, of course—checkout time at the Atlantic Inn is noon—and tonight's guests wouldn't begin checking in until four o'clock or so, on an ordinary afternoon. Which this most definitely is not. Guests staying several days are usually here on business or part of a traveling school group, as I assume you and your friends were, Miss Collins."

I nodded without even bothering to correct Ricardi on my name.

"At afternoon, business people and the high school students from other towns are usually out doing whatever it was that brought them to Boston," Ricardi snorted, glaring at me. "So you see, we have the place almost to ourselves."

As if to contradict this, there came another thump from above us, more shattering glass, and a faint but feral growl.

We all looked up uneasily.

"Luna, listen," Taylor said, impressing me by having the courage to come up and place his hands on my shoulders again despite the fact that he now completely understood what I could do. "If the guy up there finds the stairs… well, I don't know if these people are capable of thought, but—"

"—Judging by what we saw on the street," I interrupted with a reproachful look as I folded my skinny arms, "even calling them _people_ might be wrong. The guy up there isn't even alive anymore, TK: right now, he's trapped like a bug between a window and a screen... but if a bug finds a hole in the screen, it'll be able to get out—and that's what could eventually happen with the man who's trapped up there."

"And when he gets down and finds the door to the lobby locked, he'll use the fire-door to the alley!" Mr. Ricardi said eagerly. "That means we'll hear the alarm—it's rigged to go off when anyone pushes the bar—and we'll know he's gone. One less nut to worry about."

Somewhere very close to us, something huge blew up and we all ducked: Alexis started crying when the front window was very nearly blown in from the concussion.

After this latest explosion we moved our conversation to Mr. Ricardi's inner sanctum.

I supposed that I could understand how living in London during World War II must have felt like when the Germans were bombing it.

Then again, I couldn't relate completely since Germans weren't ripping Jewish throats out with their teeth.

"Look, I'm trying to make a point here," I sighed patiently, rubbing the bridge of my nose as I struggled to keep my cool. "Can you at least listen to what I'm saying?"

"I don't think so," Charity said quietly. "You're going anyway because you're worried about your family; you're trying to persuade us because you want company."

"Sure, I want company! I'd feel a helluva lot safe if you guys came with me, too!" I snapped, glancing up and blowing an annoying strand of hair out of my eyes. "But that's not why I'm trying to talk you into coming with me! If you hadn't noticed, the smell of smoke is getting stronger—but when's the last time you heard a siren?"

When none of them replied, I nodded matter-of-factly.

"I thought as much," I continued, giving them all a very intense stare. "I don't think things are going to get better in Boston, or at least not for a while. Really, they're going to get worse—and I'd feel a whole lot better knowing that I'm not leaving you guys to do die in a mass-murdering zombie raid. I can protect you if I'm with you, but not if you stay here… because whether you stay or come, I'm leaving. However, if all of this happened because of the cell phones—"

"—She tried to leave a message for my dad," Alice suddenly interrupted, speaking rapidly. "She just wanted to make sure he'd picked up the dry cleaning because she needed her yellow wool dress for her committee meeting, and I needed my school uniforms washed so I'd have clothes for school tomorrow. She called him in the cab and then this red glow sparked up around her phone, and after that, she started coughing up blood! I thought my mom had only passed out, but she woke up again and choked the driver! She started biting at the back of his seat! Then there was blood on the side of his face, and we crashed! We crashed into a telephone pole!"

Alice looked into our staring faces, then put her own face in her hands and began crying.

Taylor turned and was about to head over to comfort her, but Mr. Ricardi surprised us both by coming around his desk and putting a skinny arm around her shoulders.

"There, there," he soothed. "I'm sure it was all a misunderstanding."

"Misunderstanding?" she cried, head flying up; her bubblegum pink hair fanned out when she shook her head rapidly. Her blue-green eyes were wild and round as she indicated the dried bib of blood on the front of her dress. "Does this look like a misunderstanding to you?! I used the karate from the self-defense classes I took in junior high! I used karate on my own mother! I broke her nose, I think… I'm sure I did—and still, if I hadn't been able to reach behind me and get the door open…"

"She would have killed you," I said flatly.

"She would have killed me," Alice agreed in a whisper, looking at me fearfully. "She didn't know who I was anymore. My own mother would have killed me, and it was all because of the cell phone she used! She tried to bite me! Somehow, the cell phones did this to everyone!"

"So, how many of those damned things are out here in Boston?" Charity demanded, bouncing her knee a little while Alexis sleepily clung to her. The little girl was obviously exhausted after crying for nearly two hours straight, but—from what I could see—her savior wasn't much better off in the exhaustion department. "I don't live around here and the only way I keep in touch with people is through the phone, so I have no idea what the hell I'm supposed to do. What's the market penetration around here?"

"Given the large numbers of college students, I'd say it's got to be huge," Mr. Ricardi replied, resuming his seat behind his desk. "Although it goes much further than affluent young people, of course. I read an article in Radio Shack Magazine only a month ago that claimed there are now as many cell phones in mainland China as there are people in America. Can you imagine something that widespread?"

"I don't think I want to imagine that right now," I stated uneasily, rubbing my arms as goosebumps rose on them, "but thanks for putting the thought in my brain."

"All right," Taylor reluctantly sighed, "I see where you're going with this. Someone—some terrorist group, maybe—rigs the cellphone signals somehow. If you were on a call or taking one when the signal hit them, you get some kind of a… what? Some kind of radioactive virus? A subliminal message embedded in the radio signals? Bah, who cares... anyway, whatever it is, it it stops your heart and brings you back to life after you're dead? Honestly, it sounds like science fiction, and plus... how did it infect people through the cellphones? And why do the people who get bit by the corpses come back after dying?"

"How are we supposed to know?" Charity demanded, looking at him in irritation. "Thirty to forty years ago, cell phones would have also seemed like science fiction!"

"Personally, I don't think it was something done by terrorists," I said slowly, remembering the red glow I'd seen. "I don't know how it happened, but... I think it might have been an accident or something—a really bad, unintentional accident that was caused by some sort of radioactive energy blast. You all remember how our science teacher told us that nuclear radiation could have some unexpected side affects, right?"

"Yeah, but what does Nuclear radiation have to do with anything?" Taylor demanded, glaring at me. "That sounds like terrorist crap to me!"

"Don't you watch the news?!" I snapped back, returning his glare with a burning expression of my own. "Last week, the president himself stated that they were going to be doing a nuclear bomb test in the South Pacific! Based on what I read online, he was doing it to send a warning message to the people in Russia and Syria or whatever, remember?! That test was supposed to happen _today_!"

Everyone immediately froze.

"No way," Alice whispered, shaking her head in horror. "So, you think it affected the cell phone signals?!"

"Yes: I think the radioactive energy from the nuclear blast might have centered along the cellphone connections," I confirmed, giving her a firm expression. "If you remember correctly, the South Pacific is where a major part of the earth's magnetic field is located. A nuclear explosion could disrupt that: that's why I think the blast may have unintentionally traveled through the wireless link to the satellites. Because of the signals that were affected while people were talking, they all... got infected with whatever the hell got into them. Then again, the insidious thing that makes this even worse is that when people see things going wrong all around them—"

"—their first impulse is to reach for their cell phones and try to find out what's going on," Alice finished weakly as the blood drained from her face. "Oh, my God..."

"Yeah, exactly," I agreed with a nod. "I saw people doing it on the way here."

"Jesus, fuck my life…" Charity groaned, rubbing her face with one hand. "If that's true, almost everyone I used to know back home is probably dead!"

"If Luna's theory is right, we're in some serious trouble," Taylor whispered, face turning a sickly shade of grey. "Every other person I saw was pulling one of those things out of a purse or a pocket on the way here. Do you think cellphones will ever be safe from those nuclear waves or whatever?"

"Honestly?" I scoffed, giving him an incredulous expression. "Probably, considering the magnetic field will return to normal and the radioactive signals will fade. Then I again, I'm sure as hell not brave enough to stick one against my ear to find out."

"What all of this has to do with you leaving the safety of the hotel—especially with dark coming on—I don't really know, but you're still too young to go alone." Mr. Ricardi pointed out. Another explosion shook the earth immediately after he said it, but this particular explosion was also followed by half a dozen more—all of which seemed to march off to the southeast like the diminishing footsteps of a giant.

From above us came another thud and a faint groan.

"I want to leave because this hotel isn't as safe as you think it is," I stated icily, cocking my head to the side as I looked at him dangerously. "I don't think those zombies outside will have the brains to leave the city any more than the guy up there can find his way to the stairs. That means it would be safer to get away from Boston than to stay in it and wait for them to kill us."

"Oh, Christ," Taylor gasped, hope instantly beginning to shine in his eyes. "She's right: they're drawn to sound, and with explosions going off, they won't leave! We can, though, and if we're careful we might even be able to get out in one piece! I never even thought of that!"

"There might be something else, too," Alice said, biting her lip and looking down at her hands, which were working together in a restless knot. She forced herself to look up at me as she said, "it might actually be safer to go after dark than going in broad daylight."

"Why is that, Alice?" Charity asked curiously, holding Alexis' sleeping form protectively against her chest; every now and then, she stroked the girl's long red hair. "Maybe it'd be safer for me since _my_ skin blends in with the shadows, but you'd stand out pretty easily compared to a black girl. Plus, if those crazy people out there really are flesh-eating zombies like in the Walking Dead, then they'll probably be able to smell us or something, right?"

"I dunno about that," Alice replied, glancing at the black girl with wary eyes, "but I do know that they can't see anything: if you can get behind something or hide from them and be extremely quiet—they'll forget about you almost right away."

"What makes you think that?" Taylor snorted, quirking an eyebrow. "Seriously, this isn't a movie or a video game! Those things are literal zombies!"

"It's because I hid from the one that was chasing me," Alice stated in a low voice, shuddering violently. "The guy in the yellow shirt, remember? This was just before I saw you and the albino girl, but I hid in an alley… behind one of those Dumpster thingies? I was afraid because I thought there might not be any way back out if he came in after me, but it was all I could think of to do. I saw him standing at the mouth of the alley, walking around in circles and trying to chew on the brick wall. At first I thought he was playing with me, you know? Because he had to have seen me go into the alley, I was only a few feet ahead of him—just a few feet, almost close enough to grab… but once I was in there, it was like… I dunno…"

"Out of sight, out of mind," Taylor muttered, lips twisting in skeptical confusion. "But if he was that close, why did you stop running once you lost him?"

"Because I just _couldn't_ anymore," Alice whispered, shoulders beginning to tremble. "I just couldn't. My legs were like rubber, and I felt like I was going to shake myself apart from the inside out. But it turned out that I didn't have to run, anyway, because he chewed on the wall for a few more minutes until a car crashed nearby. Then he just walked off towards it: I could hardly believe it! I thought he had to be trying to fake me out, but at the same time I knew he was too crazy for anything like that."

She looked briefly at me, then back down at her hands again.

"What's wrong?" I stammered, swallowing after seeing the expression in her eyes. "Hey, seriously, what was that look for?"

"It's just, my problem was running into him again," Alice muttered, shivering. "I should have stuck with you guys the first time, but I can be pretty stupid sometimes."

"Hey, don't worry about it girlfriend," Charity chuckled in amusement, patting her shoulder in a gentle way. "I'm a crazy idiot sometimes, too,"

"Yeah, it's no problem, Alice." I laughed, getting to my feet and walking over to her. "You were sca—"

Before I could finish, the biggest explosion yet came from somewhere right around the corner: my eyes went blank when the windows lit up with orange light... but then it turned white, and a deafening blast of wind sent me flying flat onto the floor. All of us duck and covered our ears with simultaneous screams as the entire foundation of building shook as though an eight-point-seven earthquake were rocking it, and I faintly heard windows shattering in the lobby.

Alexis woke up instantly and started screaming in terror upon hearing the terrifying sounds.

When it was over, I curled my legs up and twisted to look over my shoulder in horror.

"Holy shit!" i squeaked, looking at everyone in shock. "What the fuck was that?!"

"Oh, my God…" Mr. Ricardi whispered, wide-eyed with horror. "That might have been the new Speedway Super Station they put in over on Kneeland, the one that all of the taxis and the tourist buses use for refueling. It was in the right direction."

I had no idea if Ricardi was right because I couldn't smell burning gasoline yet.

However, my visually trained mind's eye could see a triangle of concrete burning like a propane torch in the fading daylight.

"Hey, Taylor, can a modern city burn?" I suddenly asked, looking at the blonde boy with extremely worried eyes. "If it's made mostly of concrete, metal, and glass, could it still burn the way Chicago did after Mrs. O'Leary's cow kicked over the lantern?"

"The lantern-kicking business was nothing but an urban legend, Luna," Alice sighed, rubbing the back of her neck as though she were getting a bad headache. "My second-hour teacher, Mrs. Myers, said so in American History."

"That's not the point, but I'll get back to that debate with you a little later on," I joked before flashing her a grin. "I like having a few debates every now and then."

"To answer your question, Luna, sure it could," TK replied simply, shrugging his shoulders. "Look at what happened to the World Trade Centers after those airplanes hit: they burned and collapsed inward on themselves."

"Yeah, and not to mention those airplanes were full of jet fuel." Mr. Ricardi said pointedly. "That kind of stuff can't be put out easily."

As if the bald man had conjured it, the smell of burning gasoline began to come to us, wafting through the shattered lobby windows and sliding beneath the door to the inner office.

"I guess you were on the nose about that Speedway station," Charity remarked, rubbing Alexis's back and shivering violently. "Fuck, what do we do?! There are too many what-ifs going around! We need a plan!"

Mr. Ricardi went to the door between his office and the lobby before he unlocked it and pushed it open.

What I could see of the lobby beyond already looked deserted, gloomy, and somehow irrelevant.

Mr. Ricardi sniffed audibly, then closed the door and locked it again.

"Fainter already," he stated.

"Wishful thinking," I retorted. "Either that or your nose is getting used to the aroma,"

"I think he might be right, Luna," TK said thoughtfully. "That's a good western wind out there—by which I mean the air's moving toward the ocean—and if what we just heard was that new station they put in on the corner of Kneeland and Washington, by the New England Medical Center—"

"—That's the one, all right," Mr. Ricardi interrupted, face registering glum satisfaction. "Oh, the protests! The smart money fixed that, believe you m—"

"—then the hospital will be on fire by now," Taylor continued, overriding him. "Along with anybody left inside, of course…"

"No," Alice whispered, putting a hand over her mouth. "They wouldn't have!"

"I think yes, and then the Wang Center's next in line," TK stated firmly, glancing at all of us in dismay. "I know Boston like the back of my hand since my Uncle lives about thirteen miles away from here: every other weekend from the time I was five, I've been brought to his house for visits. The breeze may drop by full dark, but if it doesn't then everything east of the Mass Pike is going to be a raging inferno by ten o'clock tonight."

"We're west of there," Mr. Ricardi pointed out. "If what you said is true, we're out of range for the fire."

"Then we're safe enough," I said bravely, tossing my hair out of my eyes as I made my way to Mr. Ricardi's little window, stood on my toes, and peered out onto Essex street. I straightened a little and added a little more fearfully, "Or… at least from _that_ fire."

"What do you see?" Charity asked, soothing Alexis once more. "Do you see people?"

"No… oh, wait—yes," I whispered, eyes widening in shock when I saw a man with a bloodstained mouth staggering towards the source of the explosion. "There's one man on the other side of the street."

"Is he one of the crazies?" the black girl inquired in a gentle voice, cuddling the red-haired little girl in an effort to soothe her tears. "Seriously, spit it out!"

"He's... a zombie, not even kidding: typical dead walk, bloody mouth, dead skin color... the works," I weakly replied, watching him weave his way around the cars. Once, just before he went around the corner and onto a road that a green metal sign labeled as 'Lincoln Street', the guy ran into a fruit display in front of a grocery store; he instantly made a biting motion with his teeth before shuffling off. "Now he's gone, though,"

"There's no one else?" Taylor asked.

"Not at the moment, but there's smoke," I replied, pausing as I strained to make myself taller by standing on the very tips of my toes. "Soot and ash, too, but I can't really tell how much there is because the wind's whipping it all around like crazy."

"Okay, I'm convinced enough," TK instantly squeaked. "I've always been a slow learner, but never a no-learner: this city's going to burn, and nobody's going to stand pat but _Them."_

_"_I think that's right," I said quietly—but because of my understanding about how cell phones in general connected to other cell phones through satellites, I didn't think this was true of just Boston alone. However, for the time being, Boston was all that I could bear to consider. In time I might have been able to widen my view, but not until I knew my family was safe.

"Can I come with you guys if you go?" Alice asked timidly. "I have no reason to stay here, and I'd feel safer if we could all stick together."

"Sure," I replied instantly before glancing at the desk clerk. "You can, too, Mr. Ricardi."

"I shall stay at my post," the man stated loftily. "I belong here."

However, before his gaze shifted away from mine I saw that his silver eyes looked sick.

"I don't think you'll get in Dutch with the management for locking up and leaving under these circumstances," Charity said, handing Alexis over to Alice for a moment; then she got up and began foraging for some thick cloth and some straps. "Seriously, you should come with us!"

"I shall stay at my post, Miss Mitchell," he said again. "Mr. Donnelly, the day manager, went out to make the afternoon deposit at the bank and left me in charge. If he comes back, perhaps then…"

"Seriously? But... but what if you…" Charity asked, trying to reason with him; however, when she couldn't think of anything else to say, she trailed off with a frustrated growl and snapped, "ugh, whatever, then. It's your choice."

"No, Charity. Please, Mr. Ricardi, come with us!" Alice pleaded, folding her hands imploringly. "Staying here is no good!"

However, the desk clerk—who had once more crossed his arms over his thin chest in defiance—only shook his head again and leaned back in his chair with a scowl.


	5. Chapter 4: Travel Preparations

**Chapter Four: Travel Preparations **

With Taylor's help, Alice moved one of the Queen Anne chairs aside and Mr. Ricardi unlocked the doors for us. When I looked out I couldn't see people moving in either direction, but it was hard to tell whether or not they were there for sure because the air was now full of fine dark ash. It danced in the breeze like black snow.

"Come on," I whispered, unsheathing the katana as I glanced outside. "We should go look for some supplies before we get the hell out of here."

We were only going next door to the Metropolitan Café, but that didn't make the streets any less dangerous.

"Luna, are you sure it's safe to do this?" Charity whispered quietly, carrying a sleepy-eyed Alexis on her back in a makeshift child-carrier. "Seriously."

"Dude, there are zombies walking around: of course it's not safe!" I retorted, tiredly rubbing my eyes. "If we run into trouble, make sure to stay behind me."

"Hang on," TK stated, gripping one of the long wooden chair legs and breaking it off. "I'd feel more comfortable if I had something to defend myself with."

"I'm going to relock the door and put the chair back in place," Mr. Ricardi stated in a hushed tone, "but I'll be listening in case things go wrong. If you run into trouble that Miss Collins can't handle alone—if there are too many of those creatures hiding in the Metropolitan, for instance—and you have to retreat, just remember to shout, 'Mr. Ricardi, Mr. Ricardi, we need you!' That way I'll know it's safe to open the door. Is that understood?"

"Yes, sir," I said bravely, but then—after only a moment—my courageous mask faltered and a look of fear replaced it. Losing the façade completely, I threw my arms around the man's skinny waist with a small sigh before I clamped my jaw shut. "Just... be careful, all right?! This is dangerous!"

"Now, now," the desk clerk sighed, showing no particular sign of pleasure upon receiving my hug. "Enough of that, young lady: you're far to old and mature to be acting like this, and your friends look up to you for some odd reason."

"You're all right, Mr. Ricardi." I sighed, looking up at him. "I didn't think you were at first, but I was wrong—and for that I apologize."

"I do my best," the bald man said stiffly. "Just remember—"

"We'll remember," Taylor said firmly, running a hand through his thick blonde hair. "We'll be over there in maybe ten minutes—but I'm pretty damn sure that Luna and I can manage to keep our group safe. If anything goes wrong over here, you give us a shout."

"All right," the bald man sullenly agreed. "I'll do that."

I blinked and slowly looked up at his face with a disturbed expression suddenly getting a strange but very unpleasant feeling that he wouldn't call us if he ran into trouble. I don't know why that thought popped into my head: it made no sense whatsoever to suspect that a man wouldn't give a shout to save himself if he was in trouble… but for some reason I got the feeling that he definitely wouldn't call us.

It made me feel worried about him.

"Please change your mind, Mr. Ricardi," Alice pleaded once more. "It's not safe in Boston anymore; you must know that by now!"

The man only looked away with a grimace.

"Come on," I sighed, shaking my head. "Let's make some sandwiches while we've still got electricity to see by."

"Some bottled water wouldn't hurt, either," Charity added, sounding way too enthusiastic about the entire situation. "I need to keep my body watered like a plant."

"Oh, joy," I muttered sarcastically, rolling my eyes. "Anyway... let's get going!"

With that, all of us took off out into the smoky ash billowing around outside. We ran into a few zombies along the way, but with some carefully aimed blows, TK and I managed to take them out without making too much noise. However, once we were inside the cafe, that was a different story: nearly fifteen undead where wandering around in there, and it took a helluva lot of fighting to keep from getting bit. I managed to take down half, and TK took down the rest, but not without a few scares and almost-bites.

Once we were sure the dead were dead, we waved Charity and Alice inside.

The electricity failed just as we were wrapping the last of our sandwiches in the Metropolitan Café's tidy, white-tiled little kitchen. By then, I'd tried to get through to my family three more times: once to my house, once to Dimondale Elementary—where my mother taught—and once to Carl's Supermarket, where my brother and sister both worked. In no case did I get further than Eaton County's 517 area code.

However, when the lights in the Metropolitan went out, Alice and Charity screamed simultaneously in what first seemed to me like total darkness. Then the emergency lights came on: the other girls weren't much comforted, though. Charity was shaking and glancing around with wild brown eyes, and Alice was clinging to Taylor with one arm while—with the other—she brandished the bread-knife she'd used to cut the sandwiches. Her eyes were wide and somehow almost completely lacking their luster.

"Alice, calm down!" I immediately soothed, catching her attention. "Just put the knife down before you cut one of us by accident."

"Or yourself," TK added in that mild, soothing voice of his; the boy's eyes glinted in the glare of the emergency lights. "It's not safe."

I watched as she put it down, but then raised my eyebrows when she promptly picked it up again.

"I want it…" she stated firmly. "I want to take it with me. You have a sword, and TK has a bat, so I want to have a knife of my own. Okay?"

"All right," I sighed, giving her a gentle nod, "but you don't have a belt, so we'll make you one from a tablecloth. For now, just be careful with it, 'kay?"

Half the sandwiches we made were roast beef and cheese, and the other half were ham and cheese.

There were about sixty of them, total, by the time we were finished.

Alice had wrapped them all in Saran wrap, and Charity had also found two sacks under the cash register that we all agreed would be used to carry the water bottles in. She and TK tumbled the sandwiches into our backpacks, and into the sacks we put twenty bottles of water.

The tables had been made up for a dinner-service that was never going to happen: two or three had been tumbled over, but most stood perfect with their glasses and silverware shining in the hard light of the emergency boxes resting on the walls. Something about their calm orderliness hurt my heart: the cleanliness of the folded napkins, and the little electric lamps on each table, all surrounded by bloody corpses lying on the ground. Those were now dark, and I had an idea that it might be a long time before the bulbs inside lit up again.

I saw that Alice, Charity, and Alexis were gazing about with faces that were unhappy as my heart felt, and a sudden desire to cheer them up—almost manic in its urgency—came over me. I remembered a trick I used to do for my older brother and sister on their birthdays, but then I wondered again about Johnny's cell phone and another small panic attack swept over me. I hoped with all of my heart that the damned phone was lying forgotten under his bed among the dust-kitties with it's battery flat.

"Okay, fellow ladies, watch this carefully," I said with a reassuring smile, setting my bag of sandwiches aside before I grabbed the hanging skirt of a nearby table cloth, "and please, note that at no time do my hands leave my wrists."

"This is hardly the time for parlor tricks, Luna," TK chided with a scowl. "We should hurry up and leave."

"I wanna see, Auntie Luna!" Alexis cried, speaking to me openly for the first time ever. "Please?!"

"Yes, so do I," Alice agreed; for the first time since we'd met her, there was a smile on her face: it was small, but definitely there. "Show us?"

"I'm all for some magic tricks," Charity giggled, rolling her eyes with a teasing smile. "Seriously, have you even seen the things that girl can do?!"

"We only need a tablecloth, Charity, " I laughed, tossing my snowy bangs out of my eyes. "It won't even take a second—and besides, we all need a little comic relief. However, you all have to say a magic word at the same time for it to work. Shazam will do, I guess."

"Shazam!" they all said simultaneously, and I briskly pulled the table cloth with both of my hands.

I hadn't done the trick in two, maybe even three years because my elder siblings now hated everything about me, so I was a little rusty.

Yet at the same time, my mistake—some small hesitation in the pull, no doubt—actually added to the charm of the trick. Instead of staying where they were while the tablecloth magically disappeared from beneath them, all the place-settings on the table moved about for inches to the right. The glass nearest to where I was standing actually wound up with its circular base half on and half off the table. Alice and Charity applauded and Alexis squealed in delight, all three of them laughing as I performed a curtsy and bowed with my small hands held out gracefully to the sides.

"Can we go now, O' great Vermicelli?" TK asked, but even he was smiling now. "Because that was the most limp-dicked trick I've ever seen."

"Yeah, as soon as I rig this," I replied, folding the tablecloth into a triangular shape before I rolled it into a belt. I slipped a bag of sandwiches onto it by the bag's carrier handles, then walked over to Alice and tied the tablecloth around her slim waist, knotting it over her school skirt so it would stay put. I finished by throwing the serrated bread-knife into the air with a dangerous—yet amazingly cool—twist of my wrist, letting it flip twice before I grabbed it, upside down, by the handle and flawlessly slid it home on the right side.

After that, I stepped back to survey my work.

"Nice," Charity noted admiringly, eying the knife with a raised eyebrow. "You really know what you're doing when it comes to sharp objects."

"I know, right?" I laughed, clapping my hands twice in rapid succession. "Now she can carry the knife on one side and a bag of sandwiches on the other. You can tote the water, TK."

"You're pretty handy," Taylor chuckled, wriggling his eyebrows. "For a girl, that is."

"Handy is dandy, Taylor—just as my Mama always said," I retorted, rolling my eyes. "Never forget it."

"I won't," he muttered, smirking at me. "Promise."

Something else exploded outside—close enough to shake the café; the glass that had been standing half on and half off the table lost its balance, tumbled to the floor, and shattered. The five of us looked at it, and I thought about telling them that I didn't believe in omens—but that would only make things seem worse. Plus, it would have been a lie because I did believe in them.

"Let's head back to the Atlantic Avenue Inn before we set off," I stated quietly, looking away from the shattered glass. "I forgot my art portfolio, and I'd also like to find some sort of makeshift scabbard for Alice's knife—maybe even a shaving kit would do. Plus, I'd like to give Mr. Ricardi another chance to join us."

After the words were out, I was suddenly very surprised to find that I wanted this more than I wanted the book my spiteful older brother had rejected.

I had taken an oddly reluctant liking to the man.

"I agree with Luna," Alice sighed. "We should go back for him: we can't just leave him here."

"Yeah," Charity added, nodded twice before she glanced over her shoulder and into Alexis' big green eyes. "Do you want Uncle Ricardi to come, too?"

The little girl nodded and tiredly rested her curly-haired head on the black girl's slender shoulder.

"Don't get me wrong, though," I said hastily, glancing at the two of them quickly. "He's a really snide man and I don't like him all that much, but I can't help feeling sorry for him. He lost his wife while he was talking to her on the phone, and... and I admire his resolution to stand firm with his beliefs in a time of trouble as big as this one."

"Yep, pretty much," Taylor agreed, surprising me by giving a nod, "it's kind of the way I feel about anchovies on pizza. I tell myself all the time that there's something disgusting about a combination of cheese, tomato sauce, and dead fish… but sometimes I get that weird urge and I can't stand against it."

"Ew, anchovies?" Alice gagged, shuddering in revulsion. "Gross!"

"Let's get going, guys," Charity groaned quietly, gently hefting Alexis farther up onto her back in the makeshift child-carrying backpack. "This kid may only be seven years old, but she sure as hell isn't as light as I thought she was a few minutes ago."

"Alright then," I stated, giving a curt nod before heading for the entrance. "Let's get going! And remember, be quiet no matter what: they're drawn to sound."

A blizzard of black ash and soot was blowing up the street and between the buildings.

Car alarms warbled, burglar alarms brayed, and fire alarms clanged. There seemed to be no heat in the air, but I could hear the crackle of fire to the south and east of us and the smell of smoke was stronger here. I heard voices shouting, but these were back toward the Common where Boylston street widened. When we got back to the Atlantic Avenue Inn, Alice and I helped Tom push one of the Queen Anne chairs away from one of the broken panels. The lobby beyond was now a pool of gloom in which Mr. Ricardi's desk and the sofa were only darker shadows. If I hadn't already been in there earlier, I would have had no idea what those shadows represented.

Above the elevators, a single emergency light guttered weakly with the boxed battery beneath it buzzing like a horsefly.

"Mr. Ricardi?" TK called loudly as I peered into the Inn with a cautious expression. "Mr. Ricardi, we came back to see if you'd changed your mind."

There was no reply.

"I've got a bad feeling," I stated in a small voice after a long moment of silence. "I don't like this."

So saying, I drew the sword again and gently used it to knock out the glass teeth that still jutted from the window frame.

"Mr. Ricardi!" Taylor called again; when there was still no answer, he turned to look at me with worried amber eyes. "You're not going in there, are you?"

"Yes, TK, I am," I stated firmly as I knocked more glass free. "I'm going in there to get my portfolio book because it has all of the drawings I've ever given my brother and sister taped inside. I never leave or go anywhere without it because I'm always waiting for the day that they'll tell me they want it back."

"You don't have copies of those drawings?" Taylor pressed worriedly. "You didn't make more?"

"No, I didn't—and I won't leave them behind." I replied determinedly. "Plus, there's also Mr. Ricardi. He said he'd be listening, but he isn't answering."

"What if Thumper from upstairs got him?" Charity whispered, obviously trying to change my mind. "What if he became a z-zombie, too?!"

"If that had happened, I think we'd have heard both of them thumping around down here," I logically pointed out, turning my worried amethyst eyes on the dark-skinned girl. "Actually, I'm pretty damn sure that he would have come running at the sound of our voices."

"You don't know that, Luna," Alice whispered, gnawing at her lower lip. "It's way too early for us to think we know how these monsters work!"

"I'll be careful, then, but I'm going in regardless." I stated simply, pushing my long hair behind my left ear before I ducked sideways and stepped through into the lobby. It was extremely small, but I was smaller—so it was plenty wide enough for me to climb through. "I'll just poke my head into his office. If he's not there, I won't go hunting around for him like a blonde ditz in a horror movie. I'll just grab my portfolio book and we'll boogie our way out of here."

"Just babble loud enough for us to hear you, then," Alice stated immediately, clutching my arm before I slid into the shadows. "Just keep telling us that you're okay, or do something similar like that the whole time."

"All right, but if I stop yelling at any time and don't come out, leave without me," I stated firmly, looking at her icy teal eyes. "Don't come in after me."

"Don't worry, Luna: I've seen all of those horror movies, too," Alice said with a grim nod. "We've got Netflix back at home."

I nodded back at her as she let go, slipping away from my companions and into the darkness. I cautiously and silently made my way over to where my portfolio book lay on the reception desk, picking it up with silent fingers before glancing around nervously.

"I'm okay," I called, looking over my shoulder as I went around the desk. I saw the unblocked window and noticed that it glimmered and seemed to float in the thickening gloom, with three definable silhouettes cut into the day's last light. "I'm still okay, you guys. I'm just going to check into his office, now, so don't worry. It's all…. oh, my—oh, my—oh, sweet Jesus…"

"Luna?!" Taylor's voice called in extreme alarm when I fell silent. "Luna, are you okay?!"

For a moment I couldn't respond.

I was too horrified.

My eyes widened in horror and I immediately started shaking, legs trembling so badly that I soon went down on my knees. With amethyst eyes that had gone completely blank, I clamped both hands to my mouth to muffle the scream that had built up in my throat. There was an overhead light fixture in the middle of the inner office's high ceiling, and Mr. Ricardi was hanging from it by what looked like a drape-cord. There was a white, plastic K-Mart bag pulled down over his head, so I couldn't see his face.

"Luna, girl, are you all right?!" Charity cried frantically.

This couldn't be happening to me.

It wasn't real.

There was no possible way.

But the ropes were cutting into Ricardi's neck, his body was still swinging back and forth, and I was completely aware of what was going on. It was impossible, but at the same time… everything was actually pointing towards it being very possible indeed.

Mr. Ricardi had killed himself.

"Luna?!" Alice squeaked shrilly, sounding as though she were ready to go hysterical.

"I-I-I'm all r-right," I finally croaked, voice sounding high-pitched and shrill. ""I'm still right h-here, but I'm c-coming out now."

After that, I shook her head, squeezing my eyes shut when my vision began to swim with black and red spots; I forced myself to take a deep breath, but I felt extremely lightheaded when I opened my eyes and looked around once again. The colors of the darkened inner office seemed overly bright now, and the feeling of lightheadedness only increased the more I tried to fight it off.

I couldn't forget about how Mr. Ricardi had looked when he'd told us he was going to stay.

His words had been lofty, but his silver eyes had been scared—like the eyes of a small, starving kitten driven into a corner of someone's garage by a large and angry dog. I soon felt sick to my stomach and started backing away, feeling an irrational but deep-set fear that the man might slip out of his homemade drape-cord noose and come after me the second I turned my back.

I was suddenly even more terrified for my mother and Johnny; I was homesick for them with a depth of feeling that made me think of my first day at school and how my mother left me at the playground gate with my brother and sister. The other parents had walked their kids inside, but my mom had said, _Just go in there, Luna. It's the front room, so you'll be fine: girls should do this part alone because it makes them independent later on._

Before I'd done what she'd told me, though, I'd watched her walk all the way back down Jefferson street, staring at the back of her blue coat as tears filled my eyes. Now, standing here in the dark, I was renewing acquaintance with the knowledge that the second half of homesick was _sick_ for a reason. Taylor, Alice, Charity, and Alexis were nice enough—but I wanted the people I loved.

Trying not to vomit, I timidly moved away, keeping my pink eyes trained on the ground.

My legs were shaking so badly that I felt as though only a miracle was keeping me from collapsing: I was that shocked.

Once I was around the reception desk, I faced the street and ran across the lobby at top speed, practically hyperventilating. I quickly got close enough to the long, broken window to see the frightened faces of my new companions. After shakily stepping through the gap in the broken window, I handed my portfolio to Taylor—who took it before staring hard at my face.

I knew I must have looked whiter than a sheet because his eyes were worried.

"Where is he?" Alice asked, touching my shoulder. "Wasn't he there?"

However, I immediately felt my stomach turn upside down when she asked.

Doubling over and heaving up the little that was in my stomach at the thought of Mr. Ricardi swinging back and forth, I started sobbing hysterically and nearly collapsed due to my shaking knees. Alice instantly backed way when I retched again through my tears, forcing me to double over even further: it had me coughing hysterically with stinging eyes.

Then I closed my eyes and took a deep breath to keep from passing out.

TK immediately steadied me with his strong arms.

"What the hell happened to you?!" Charity squealed, looking at me to see if I was bleeding anywhere. "You didn't get bit by a zombie, right?!"

"No... but... R-Ricardi... he's dead," I croaked in a detached voice, staring out at nothing and feeling numb with shock. "He... killed himself... while we were at the Café. He hung himself with a drape cord... he..."

I instantly felt my stomach lurch a third time and coughed, whining in horror.

"Oh, God…" Charity squeaked, covering her mouth with a hand as her eyes widened in horror. "Nooo! No!"

"Jesus," Taylor whispered, clutching his head when Alice buried her face in her hands and began crying. "This can't be real... please..."

I continued to stare off into space, but truthfully, I felt a like crying myself: Mr. Ricardi had just finally come around… maybe most people came around if they were given a chance, but now—in Mr. Ricardi's case—it didn't even matter anymore because he was dead.

He'd killed himself.

From west of us—back toward the Common—came a scream that seemed too great to have been issued from human lungs. It sounded to me almost like the trumpeting of an elephant: there was no pain or joy in it, only a banshee-like madness. Alice cringed against me, and I put a skinny arm around her waist since I was too short to reach her shoulders.

"If we're going to get out of here, let's do it," Taylor said after a moment. "If we don't run into too much trouble, we should be able to get as far north as Malden. If we do, we can spend the night at my Uncle's place, and I'm hoping that we'll be able to sleep in relative safety."

"That sounds like one hell of a good idea," I sighed wearily, finally closing my eyes in exhaustion. "I feel sick to my stomach. It's a good idea."

"You really think so?" Taylor asked, smiling cautiously. "Are you sure?"

"I really do, Taylor," I replied with a tired nod, not opening my eyes. "Who knows? Maybe Officer Ashland is still hanging around somewhere."

"Who's officer Ashland?" Alice and Charity asked simultaneously.

"A policeman we met back by the Common." Taylor explained as the five of us began making our way east toward Atlantic Avenue, through the falling ash and the sound of alarms. "He… you know, he helped us out when a zombie attacked Luna. We won't see him, though: she's just trying to be funny with you,"

"Oh… well, I'm glad that at least somebody's trying to be." Charity sighed irritably, gently hefting Alexis into a more comfortable back-packing position as she made our way with us. Lying on the pavement by a litter barrel was a blue cell phone with a cracked casing, and the black girl kicked it into the gutter without breaking stride. "I don't know how much more of this shit I can take today."

"Nice kick," I noted, cocking an impressed eyebrow as I struggled to match everyone's long-legged strides. "I'm kind of surprised."

I was still the shortest out of the group by far, save for Alexis O'Grady.

"Nothing special," Charity said with a disinterested shrug. "Two years of soccer and six years of kicking cheating boyfriends in the nuts can give a girl a mean-tempered foot."

"I guess so," I giggled with a mental eye-roll. "Remind me never to make you angry."

At that very moment the streetlights came on, like a promise that all was not yet lost.


End file.
